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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23754151">Noémie and Adèle</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/aldeana/pseuds/aldeana'>aldeana</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Portrait de la jeune fille en feu|Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) RPF, Real Person Fiction</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 16:40:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>34,145</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23754151</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/aldeana/pseuds/aldeana</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Hi! I start to post here the <b>google translation</b> of Noémie y Adèle, the Spanish fanfic, with some improvements but I welcome and thank your suggestions in the comments!! We need a human translator anyway!!</p><p>Actresses Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel fall in love during the shooting of Portrait of a Lady on Fire in a few days.<br/>This is just a tribute to the wonderful love story we have all seen unfold during the promotion of the movie Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Not knowing if it is just a collective fantasy, caused by our desire for it to happen, or is it reality.</p><p>UPDATED:<br/>The second part of this story is titled "Céline and Adèle" and it is already being posted, please enjoy 😉</p><p>twitter: @aldeana74102066</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>noémie merlant/adèle haenel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>99</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            A translation of

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23357884">Noémie y Adèle</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/aldeana/pseuds/aldeana">aldeana</a>.
        </li>

    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She takes off her blouse. She has her back to me.</p><p>I look at two big moles and run my fingers over them. Without thinking. She turns to look at me. She didn't expect my hand on her back.</p><p>Céline enters the room. We are going to film the kiss in the cave and she comes to say that everything is ready. But Adèle is not ready, she is still getting dressed.</p><p>- We must hurry. In an hour the tide rises, reports Céline, and leaves us alone.</p><p>Adèle looks at me while dressing. She watches me curiously. Why have I touched her? But doesn't ask me, not yet. There is a reserve between the two, a reserve that I endeavor to break as soon as possible. But it is that the night before on the beach, she placed her hand on my thigh, absentmindedly, twice. It is true that we had drunk and that it is normal to leave the hand carelessly on the leg of the person next to you. It is not so typical, however, that someone caress your bare back, without saying a word, when you are changing your clothes. But it hasn't bothered her. Her gaze smiles at me, though she says nothing. I like her body. I like her back, her shoulders, her hands. I try not to dwell too much on all the details, so as not to bother her.</p><p>- You have two moles on your back, you know?</p><p>She continues to smile as she finishes dressing.</p><p>- Aren't you going to help me?</p><p>I'm crazy. I don't know how I dared to do it, to touch her without excuse. Crazy, crazy. Crazy about her. I've never felt anything like this before. This kind of suicidal urge, to go over everything, to think of nothing but her at all hours. Now she knows I want her. If she doubted it. I don't know which of the two is going to take the first step, but I know that it happens to her too. Maybe she doesn't show it as much as I do, because Céline is nearby. It seems to me that they are no longer together, but I would not swear. For my part, I don't care. When she put her hand on my leg on the beach, I felt happy. I felt nothing but her hand. The voices around were a meaningless rumor, I concentrated on her hand so much that I forgot I was talking to someone and it was impossible to have a conversation with me. I pretended I was a little drunk. It was a lie. Do you feel me tremble? Do you realize the effect you have on me? I'm sure about that.</p><p>- Shall we go down to the beach? She says, when she's finished.</p><p>- Yeah...</p><p>We both go as automata, reviewing in the head what Céline has told us. We are dressed as Héloïse and Marianne, but I will kiss Adèle and she will kiss Noémie. We both wear those veils covering our mouths, with the excuse of protecting ourselves from the wind. First we will shoot the descent to the beach, she holding on to me and I on her, "collaborating" to go down.  because according to Céline, no one will take on the male-protective role, not even Marianne. In the film that role doesn't exist.</p><p>Céline, at night, in front of a bottle of wine and cheese, explains what the purpose is:</p><p>- It is not about a woman taking the typical male role, the typical role that man has always had. It is not about saving anyone or beating the bad guys. We don't want that here. That is staying halfway to change. What needs to be done is to eliminate that role of savior and saved, to eliminate the dynamics of the conflict.</p><p>Those words dance in my head as we help each other down to the beach. Héloïse looks at Marianne, Marianne looks at Héloïse, alternately, and the eyes never meet. It is so. Céline has said that it must be so and we have internalized the choreography, our dance step on the rocks, as we go down to the arena. Now, Adèle will go ahead and I will follow her. She will go into the rocks, seeking refuge from the wind, seeking the place from which to wait for me. I will follow her from a distance, her footprints in the sand, her figure in front of the mouth of a cave, like an Eurydice inviting me to go down to hell. I approach slowly, counting the steps in my mind, following the rhythm, like a metronome that Céline has put inside me. The tide rises. We will record this scene three times.</p><p>When we go back to the apartment, I'm thinking about that kiss. That kiss that we have tripled. I keep savoring it in my mouth. Since they say I'm an introvert, I can stay like this, without attracting attention, but I am thinking about that kiss shamelessly.</p><p>- Come, Adèle says, who realizes that she is driving me crazy and does not want to leave me alone.</p><p>Now we have free. It is already dark, we have recorded enough for today. She seems like a happy girl. Shouts:</p><p>- Let's change our clothes!</p><p>And we run to the house. The rest of the shooting will be in the city, so people want to enjoy the beach. Tonight we will sit around the fire again. We will see the last rays of the sun again illuminating the horizon, we will drink again. I wonder if this time, Adèle will look for a sit next to me and willfully place her hand on my leg again. I wonder if I will. I live it all like a crazy adventure.</p><p>- Are you going to bathe?, she asks me.</p><p>I look into her blue-green eyes, it's as if I have plunged into them. I smile stupidly.</p><p>- Ok, I'm going to take a bath. But I don't know if we will get sick.</p><p>- Bah, don't be afraid. We will leave immediately and we will bundle up warmly.</p><p>Many bathe naked. Adele too. I do the same. I take off my clothes. She is already in the water. It's a ritual, you know, she explained to me. I don't know if she is serious, she smiles all the time. A ritual bathing in the sea in October, without clothes. It means you start a new life. I go into the cold water screaming. I still don't know what awaits me, but in the dark water, in the dark of the night on the beach, she hugs me for a moment and I feel her body pressed against mine. And I don't want it to separate. For a few seconds I feel myself dying. Céline also comes to bathe. Now we are all in the water. I realize that Adèle separates from me, keeps her distance. It depresses me to think that they are still together. We get out of the water. I first. I dry myself and from the shore I observe them: are they together in the water, do they kiss, touch each other? I watch as a jealous husband. I dry and get dressed quickly, and get under a blanket.</p><p>When Adèle leaves and reaches where I am, she asks me if I'm not going to share the blanket. Again, that night, we sit together. People play cards, they tell anecdotes, jokes. Adèle is exalted, as she is, she is happy and she is so intense, but she doesn't move from my side, under the blanket. I feel her body a few inches from mine, and again she has her hand on my leg. I interpret all this as a confirmation of what I want: she feels the same, she doesn't want us to be apart all day and all night.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>I don't know when I started to depend on Adèle, if she looked at me or not, if she talked to me or spoke only with other people. What did she think of me? I cared about it. Why? I didn't know, but I wasn't trying to find out, either. I was like a little dog running after her. I know that is not a romantic definition of love, but what can I say? It is very common. Without thinking twice, you go where that person goes, you are where they are, you seek their company, their attention, even their affection and you die for a caress. And you don't know why. Yes, you behave like their dog. It's not that I'm proud, but it happens.</p><p>Every night a circle was formed and there was a talk of love, feminism, art. It was interesting to compare the ideas that came out of the conversation with my feelings, theory with reality. The team was dispersed in various groups. Céline, Adèle, Claire, Anne, Bénédicte, Marie and others used to sit together to chat in the kitchen. I was looking for a sit in that table. I was trying to sit next to her because I was happy by her side, I didn't know why, but it wasn't necessary. So when I didn't get a place next to her, I felt deliciously sad and then at least tried to get a good place to look at her. Now I think I was happier when my arm brushed her on the table than when my pupil analyzed her face. The day I had to settle for peeking at her was a pretty sad day.</p><p>Céline was talking about the movie. One of the goals was to show what we feel when we fall in love. For her, the process took time, it was not something that happened overnight.</p><p>- Don't you believe in love at first sight?</p><p>- No. For me it is an invention of patriarchy. The perfect excuse to harass women. The patriarchy speaks of love as if it were an elixir that takes away your meaning and thus everything apologizes.</p><p>- What were they called in the past? Crimes of passion.</p><p>Most of us were women and took those words seriously. You could tell they had read about it, some had even been harassed. Some, like Adèle, had suffered sexual abuse in adolescence. I was the newcomer because the others had known each other for a long time, so I listened without knowing when to laugh and when to nod vigorously because, although I understood the words, I couldn't read between the lines. I lacked all previous conversations.</p><p>To make no mistake, I let myself be carried away by the rest: if they jumped in an explosion of laughter, I would laugh, and if they became gloomy, I would become gloomy.</p><p>- And what is love for you, Céline? Someone asked.</p><p>- For me, love is something that does not enter through the eyes, but in any case through the ears.</p><p>I paid attention.</p><p>- Enter through the ears, that is, through the word, one falls in love with that person whose intelligence surprises you and caresses you at the same time. Falling in love is not only physical, it is also having an exciting conversation. A long conversation. I would say it never ends. This type of conversation is only possible between equals, between two that are treated as equals.</p><p>I looked at Adèle, who was looking at Céline, who was looking at Adèle.</p><p>I went to bed thinking that the conversation between them would never end. The idea disturbed me. Would it be possible to enter into that conversation without spoiling everything? That is, was it a conversation between two or could there be more people? But I immediately threw it out: I just wanted to have a conversation with Adèle.</p><p>It made sense. When you look at the loved one, let's say you learn their features, make them yours, their gestures, the expressions on their faces ... But when you listen to their words, you also access their interiority. In a conversation, minds connect ... I tried to imagine that kind of love, that I had never thought of, that I had never felt, even though I was already thirty years old.</p><p>That night I got sick. In the afternoon we had spent more time than was prudent on the beach and the cold had gotten into my bones. The next day I stayed in bed. Embarrassed, ashamed. I was like a whimsical little girl, who had nothing else to do just now than to get sick and have everyone caring.</p><p>I began to think of my husband with guilt. There is nothing more contrary to love than guilt. I threw the feeling in the trash. What good is it to me? I thought. I'm not going to get our relationship back, I don't want it anymore. Feeling bad about falling in love with someone else won't make me feel more attached to him.</p><p>That morning, they filmed a scene in which I was not participating and during the break from filming, Adèle came up to see me in my room. She came gracefully dressed as her character.</p><p>- You're good? You need something?</p><p>I smiled sheepishly at her from the bed and shook my head.</p><p>- I'm going to make you a tea, okay?</p><p>Don't you have to take off your suit before?</p><p>- Yes, actually we're done.</p><p>She came back with the tea. She had finally changed the clothes. She stayed by my side for a while, saying nothing. I was looking for something interesting to say and surely she noticed me distracted.</p><p>- Do you also think like Céline? I asked at last.</p><p>Adèle smiled.</p><p>- About love, I clarified.</p><p>Shrugged.</p><p>- Yeah.</p><p>- Will there be different types of love?</p><p>- Sure, but that's the one worth it. At least the one I want.</p><p>I looked down at my tea and felt her hand on my forehead.</p><p>- You don't have a fever, she informed me.</p><p>When she was gone, I snuggled under the blanket, remembering the feel of her hand.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>We spent the rest of the afternoon with technical things. I did not have to dress as my character, so I took the opportunity to talk to whoever I find and walk around the castle looking for Adèle. Sometimes one couldn't because it was all full of junk for lighting. I was told that Hélène Delmaire had been painting the second painting of Héloïse all morning. Hélène was the owner of the hands that appeared in the plans that showed the process of painting, something impossible to imitate. I limited myself to copying the expression of her face in the process and how she moved in front of the canvas. When she painted, she put on a shirt or even my red dress. Those clothes put her in the character of Marianne, who was my character. It was a bit surreal to see her in jeans with that shirt or that dress from another era. Normally in these cases I spent time looking at her to copy her gestures and a couple of times Adèle winked at me while posing. Which made me smile and made my heart race at the same time. Did she play? I didn't know what to think. She was so free that she needed no excuses to behave in such an unpredictable way. She was so beautiful in the vintage costume! It was a green dress, the color that Céline had chosen because she had seen it in several paintings of the time and because she “dreamed” of it.  Hevy. Getting into it was like weight training, but she did not move and from time to time we gave her a glass of water.</p><p>The film was a tribute to the love that had existed between Céline and Adèle and that, according to the message of the film itself, would last beyond the physical relationship. It was an "emancipatory" love story, a love that made you a better person. "Best artist and best lover," said Céline. But in a way that was a way to conclude something that had not just ended. It was the saddest story I had ever heard. I could swear that Céline was still in love with her. Making a movie together was actually a way to keep her at her side.</p><p>I passed Hélène and saw the painting, still fresh. Hélène said she was going to smoke.</p><p>- Are you better? She asked me.</p><p>- Yes, I feel better. Thank you.</p><p>- Take the opportunity to rest.</p><p>She was kind and shy. She radiated happiness. You could tell that she liked to paint and also participate in the film, although she spent many hours painting.</p><p>I put on my coat and went out to smoke with her.</p><p>There was Adèle, Céline, Valeria and Luàna, Marie, Jérôme Bigueu and Claire, who talked about the color of the skin and the lights. They all smoked.</p><p>- You too? I said to little Luàna.</p><p>- I sympathize, she replied.</p><p>Luàna constantly made jokes, but she did not laugh.</p><p>- Too bad, Valeria said. In the end you stink even if you don't smoke and the skin turns yellow.</p><p>We all listened to her in horror.</p><p>- In addition the castle has also begun to smell of tobacco.</p><p>- We are insensitive citizens with heritage conservation.</p><p>- How much does it cost a day? Adèle asked.</p><p>Céline shrugged.</p><p>- You can imagine it. A lot.</p><p>- One thousand euros?</p><p>- Ask Bénédict.</p><p>- It sure costs more than all of us put together, Valeria said.</p><p>- Who was a castle! Luàna exclaimed apathetically.</p><p>While we were talking, I noticed Adéle. In how the sweater fit her body, in how she had left her character's bow, but part of her blonde hair was already falling on her face. I remembered our scene on the beach, when Marianne runs to Héloïse to apologize and they kiss. In that scene, Adèle and I kissed for the first time, but like Héloïse and Marianne. Adèle had told me that this scene was based on another one from the Hitchcock <em>Vertigo </em>movie<em>,</em> when the detective follows the protagonist to the beach and saves her from jumping into the waves.</p><p>- But Héloïse does not attempt suicide.</p><p>- But Marianne doesn't know. If she runs so desperately it is because she thinks Héloïse has gone to the beach to commit suicide, like her sister.</p><p>- It is awful.</p><p>- Think about it: it is logical to fear that she is going to commit suicide, considering that Marianne has just told her that she does not ask her for anything, not even to resist marriage, and she is going to leave without her ... Do you remember the <em>Vertigo</em> scene?</p><p>Adèle suggested that we could see it together before going to sleep that night. I did not know if it was a good idea to see the scene that had inspired ours and feel influenced by it before filming ours, but how to resist watching a movie in bed with Adèle? The happy idea occurred to her to come to our room and kindly ask Claire to go to the other room with Céline.</p><p>The protagonist of <em>Vertigo </em>Madelaine goes from one place to another while the detective follows her. At first we don't see her face and just follow her. During her walks, she feels strangely attracted to the sea and it seems that she is going to commit suicide, or so the detective who is following her believes, and runs desperately to avoid it. The detective, whose name is Scottie, like a dog, falls in love with the mysterious woman while following her everywhere. I looked at the male lead. I did not identify with James Stewart.</p><p>It was getting cold and we had finished smoking.</p><p>- It is incredible how in mid-October we enjoyed such warm days.</p><p>- It's climate change.</p><p>Adéle was sitting on a wall, Céline had sat next to her and rested her head on her shoulder. A huge raspberry with orange and purple flowers served as the setting for the scene.</p><p>They loved each other. It was not easy: Céline was still in love and the intimacy of those moments with Adèle was too brief. I could imagine it. As always, Adèle managed to break "the magic" by starting a conversation with another person or making a funny comment. Then I took pity on Céline, who undoubtedly missed her.</p><p>- Tonight we play Activity, who is signing up?, exclaimed Adèle, like a little girl.</p><p>- We can play movies, someone suggested.</p><p>The movies ended up winning. After dinner, we started playing that game where they ask you things like: If your life were a TV show, what would it be?</p><p>- Sometimes a comedy and sometimes a drama.</p><p>- A talk show.</p><p>- Nooooo, that's horrible!</p><p>- A mystery movie.</p><p>I replied that my life was a romantic movie and they all looked at me with tenderness.</p><p>- You're so young, Céline exclaimed.</p><p>- I'm not that young.</p><p>I smiled without knowing if that comment bothered me.</p><p>Someone asked another question:</p><p>- Do you see yourself as the protagonist or as the secondary character?</p><p>- As the director, Céline answered.</p><p>They all laughed.</p><p>- I usually see myself as the spectator, replied Luàna. I am the typical psychopath who has not just gotten into the role she has had to play.</p><p>Everyone was shocked. Nobody was getting used to Luàna's humor.</p><p>- I am the camera, Adèle said.</p><p>- What does that mean?</p><p>- That I observe a lot, all the time, even when I'm the model.</p><p>- Are you playing Héloïse again?</p><p>I looked at Adèle and she looked back at me. I blushed.</p><p>When the game ended, Adèle asked me if I had seen how the painting was going without me and I lied because I wanted her to take me to see it, so we could be alone. Then she got up and took my hand. We went into the castle, which was dark like in a mystery movie. Adèle used her cell phone to light the way. It was impossible to find the switches.</p><p>There was the half-done picture. Still fresh. Uncovered.</p><p>- You can hardly see it, she said.</p><p>She lit it with her mobile.</p><p>- It's great, I exclaimed.</p><p>- But... you can't see it.</p><p>- Well, I love it.</p><p>In the dim light I could imagine her looking at me curiously.</p><p>- Hélène has been doing your job, she scoffed.</p><p>I smiled, what could I say? She and I were half a meter away and I felt a tightness in my chest that took my breath away. We didn't say anything else, we just kept looking at each other without seeing longer than necessary. I felt so awkward! But Adèle didn't do anything to break that silence either.</p><p>- "When you are worried you breathe through your mouth," she said at last.</p><p>It was a line of her character. I imagined her eyes analyzing me, although I couldn't see them well I could feel them on me.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>It's six o'clock or so. The team looks at what we shot today. The room is full. Céline has looked at me directly because she has seen something in my expression, she has noticed something.</p><p>- What do you think?</p><p>She asks me.</p><p>- I'm not convinced.</p><p>- And what is it?</p><p>- It lacks emotion.</p><p>- Jesus, Noémie.</p><p>Céline snorts like a tired horse. Her hair is tousled. Should sleep.</p><p>- You must be kidding!</p><p>She leaves the room. We are on the screen. Adele and I, that is our characters, having sex for the first time. Adèle sticks two fingers into my armpit so that it looks like a vaginal penetration. And that image has been frozen while the director goes out to take the air.</p><p>I look at Adèle.</p><p>- Do you think it's okay?</p><p>She arches an eyebrow.</p><p>- Fine. I have to go out for a while, I'm going to take the air, I say.</p><p>I get up without knowing where I'm going, but I need to get out of there. That expression on her face, eyebrow raised, what exactly does it mean? At that time I do not start to analyze it, but then it occurs to me that it is a question: "what did you expect?" Céline at the last moment has decided to change the sex scene for another "symbolic" where the protagonists rub their armpits with herbs that will slow down time. It's stupid. I wanted to ask Céline what was the idea behind that occurrence, but she ran away, frustrated.</p><p>That afternoon we avoided each other, in any case I will not insist more on the subject.</p><p>Claire explains to me:</p><p>- Céline prefers to suggest.</p><p>- What do you think of the scene?</p><p>- It is beautiful. At first the viewer is surprised to see that in the foreground, then  they understand the joke and smile, but then they keep looking at the screen and see that kiss ... They don't laugh anymore.</p><p>When our mouths separate, a few strands of saliva remain between the two.</p><p> </p><p>I think about what happened today, before. I am in my bed trying to fall asleep. The question: "what did you expect?" it makes me open my eyes. I begin to imagine that Céline has backed out of letting Adèle fly. It's not easy to say goodbye. I wonder if Adèle is saying goodbye too or is she determined to stay at all costs.</p><p>I can not sleep. Why am I so obsessed? Why do I care about all this? I jump up, furious, and get dressed. I try not to wake up Claire. I will take a walk, what else can I do? I dress with the first thing I find, yes, I take a coat. I light the way to the street with my phone. When I reach the door, Adèle is there, sitting back to me, smoking.</p><p>- You smoke at all hours, I say.</p><p>I think my voice is shaking.</p><p>She looks at me intrigued. We both looked at each other intrigued.</p><p>- Do you mind if I stay by your side for a while?</p><p>She shakes her head. She says nothing, she has said nothing. Maybe she won't say anything in the time I'm sitting here. Maybe I've interrupted her. I won't say anything either. I'm offended? Yes. Why? Because she hasn't even said hello, she doesn't ask me what's wrong, why can't I sleep, if I'm worried about something, or at least a smile: nothing. I'm shaking. Why am I trembling? It's not that cold, but she's here and she's so cold to me ... She despises me, is that it? It bothered her that I doubted that scene. It bothered her that I doubted Céline. I'm about to get up and go inside, but I don't move.</p><p>She looks at me.</p><p>- Every night when I close my eyes, I imagine that I make love to you.</p><p>That's what she tells me. She is serious, almost sad.</p><p>- Wait. Don't say anything. Before you say anything, I have to tell you that I'm not with Céline. I just wanted you to know it.</p><p>- So?</p><p>- So what.</p><p>- Why do you act like that?</p><p>- How do I behave?</p><p>- Distant, it's like you hate me.</p><p>- You are married.</p><p>She's slapped me. No. It is worse than a slap. Now I'm the one who raises an eyebrow at every answer. We both stare at the closed night in front of us.</p><p>- Weren't you going to smoke? She asks me.</p><p>- No. I can't smoke. Thank you.</p><p>That has amused her. She lets out a laugh and chokes it with her arm. But she can't stop laughing and for a while she laughs silently, biting her sleeve. I laugh too, but I'm not sure about what. I see how she dry her tears. She is so pretty, crying and laughing, it doesn't matter. She is the most beautiful woman.</p><p>- And that's why you're here? Smoking? To not close your eyes?</p><p>She liked my irony.</p><p>- And why are you here? She asks me sideways, while she takes out another cigarette because the first one has fallen on the floor.</p><p>- The same happens to me.</p><p>We stay silent looking at the night. A car with the radio at full volume passes like lightning. Again silence.</p><p>- Does the same happen to you?</p><p>Adèle has just realized what I'm saying.</p><p>- Yeah.</p><p>It is more beautiful than ever. I want to kiss her, but I don't because I am "married." I don't want to bother her. No, I will not. And neither does she. Just looks at me. She seems happy now.</p><p>- What happened to you today, why did you leave the projection room angry?</p><p>- I didn't leave angry.</p><p>- Yes. You were very angry.</p><p>- I ask you what you think of the scene and you don't say anything, you just look at me like you're fed up.</p><p>She laughs.</p><p>- And why didn't you like the scene? I see it funny.</p><p>- A sex scene doesn't have to be funny.</p><p>- Why not?</p><p>We look at each other. We are talking, but we want to kiss. I know it and she knows.</p><p>- Sex can be fun, it doesn't have to be dramatic all the time.</p><p>- I'm offside. "Dramatic", I wouldn't have defined it as dramatic.</p><p>- Heterosexual sex looks like very dramatic in the cinema. Usually.</p><p>I keep looking at her, analyzing if she is teasing me or if it is one of those feminist speeches.</p><p>- Please, Adèle. What are we doing talking about this? Why are we talking at all?</p><p>- And what else can we do? You are married and Céline is sleeping upstairs.</p><p>- I thought...</p><p>- What.</p><p>- I thought you were in an open relationship.</p><p>- Why did you think that?</p><p>- Actually, I don't know why I thought that.</p><p>- Because we are lesbians?</p><p>- No! Is not that. It is just she directs you in this movie and you have sex scenes with another actress ... I don't know. It has to be hard. I couldn't.</p><p>Adèle smiles. It makes me angry that she smiles when I'm serious, it's like I'm a five-year-old girl.</p><p>- Come here.</p><p>She puts an arm over my shoulder. It is all she intend to do.</p><p>- Adèle.</p><p>- What.</p><p>- How do you feel when you hug me like that?</p><p>- That it's going to give me a heart attack.</p><p>- Well me too. I think I'm going to have fever. Again.</p><p>She puts a finger to my lips asking me for silence.</p><p>- We will go through this as best we know, first we have to finish filming. Okay?</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>The next day, at night, Adèle was reading by the fire and I was looking at her from the table. Although I talked to the others, actually I was only looking at her. I waited for everyone to leave to go sit next to her. She hugged me and asked if she could read me something. I nodded. The sensation of a sweet surrender intoxicated me:</p><p>- I'm reading Rebecca Solnit. It is titled: A Field Guide to Get Lost. “It is often the distance between us and the object of desire that fills the space in between with the melancholy of longing. Sometimes I wonder if with a slight perspective adjustment it could be seen as a sensation on its own terms, as it is as inherent to the human condition as is blue from a distance. If you can look through the distance without wanting to bring what is far, can you own your longing in the same way that you enjoy the beauty of that horizon that you can never possess? Somewhere in this is the mystery of why tragedies are more beautiful than comedies and why we are extremely pleased with the sadness of certain songs and stories. ”</p><p>- Do you think that tragedies are more beautiful than comedies?</p><p>- Each one has its beauty ...</p><p>- Do you get that?</p><p>- What.</p><p>- Enjoying the distance that separates us.</p><p>- No distance separates us now.</p><p>I looked at her trying to find out a hidden meaning in that phrase. Who was she? I wanted to get to know her right now, even though we had just met. What made it possible for her and me to be like this, holding each other, as if a lifetime united us? I didn't understand it. The more I tried, the less I understood it and the more I despaired. I hid my face in her neck, exhausted from my inner battle.</p><p>- It is your preferred posture, she observed.</p><p>- You don't know what my preferred posture is.</p><p>I pulled away to read the expression on her face. I was sure that this childish way of behaving was amusing to her. Her gaze traveled over my face shamelessly so close and stopped on my lips. Every second looking at her lips so closely was torment. Each of my attempts to make love to her, to take our conversation to that terrain, met with resistance. But now we were so close that she couldn't resist either. I felt her mouth in my mouth, opening me slowly, I felt her tongue enter timidly and my whole body caught fire and I clung to her so that this kiss would never end.</p><p>But most of the time we weren't alone. Then, I settled for watching her. I looked at every detail: her way of moving, how she rested her face on her hands when she waited, her hands on her lap when she listened, how she raised her eyebrows when she felt boredom or outrage, how she smiled at me in the distance, looking for my complicity, her sudden reverie, her concentration when she read ... I treasured everything in my memory.</p><p>She invited me to go to the city museum the next day. So after the morning shoot, since there were going to be two hours of rest, she and I would elope together. I couldn't hide my enthusiasm. It floated.</p><p>Céline watched us curiously. Her presence made me nervous. The three of us were standing there, me looking at them, Adèle and her talking about “their things”. I hated being in the middle. I absentmindedly walked away and waited. After a while, Adèle came after me and winked.</p><p>- We'll be alone. The others go after nap.</p><p>We left. I was holding her arm. I think that anyone who looked at us could take pity on me: I was a fifteen-year-old girl of almost thirty. We entered the museum and went from room to room, laughing at anything. She tried to focus on the pictures, occasionally reading the brochure. I was looking at her. reading her instruction manual. I couldn't see anything further, although I was trying, my skin was bristling, my hands were shaking, my heart was beating in my chest as if I had run there.</p><p>- I like it, she said looking at the pictures.</p><p>I looked at the painting in front of us. A huge androgynous woman dressed in black.</p><p>- Whose is it? I asked. Adèle raised her eyebrows.</p><p>I read the small label: "Tamara de Lempicka".</p><p>- I told you.</p><p>- Seriously?</p><p>She was laughing at me, at how I floated all the time.</p><p>- You don't listen to me when I talk to you. There was amusement and understanding in her reproach, perhaps because the same thing happened to her, that she stared at me breathlessly and unable to attend to what was happening around her? It was a small sample and the paintings finished quickly, but we were there for an hour because Adèle insisted on going back to the beginning and going over everything. When we left the museum, she had taken my hand.</p><p>- Let's go to the dock. The others are about to arrive. I can smell them.</p><p>We went for some beers and sat on the dock. It was as if we had escaped from school. I looked at the horizon without believing that this was happening, that I would have fallen in love in a week with the actress with whom I was making a movie.</p><p>- Adèle, I said.</p><p>She looked at me.</p><p>- Doesn't that seem incredible to you?</p><p>- What.</p><p>- This is happening to us.</p><p>She drank from her bottle without saying anything.</p><p>- I'm in love with you, I said.</p><p>- Has this happened to you before? She asked.</p><p>- What.</p><p>- Falling in love with a woman.</p><p>- No.</p><p>We were silent for a while.</p><p>- Did you fall in love with your husband? She asked again.</p><p>- But it was different.</p><p>I looked away. I didn't want to remember my husband now.</p><p>- Like what? </p><p>I looked at her strangely. Did she really want to hear that?</p><p>- I'm not going to tell you about my husband.</p><p>- Are you going to leave him?</p><p>I nodded.</p><p>- And you? With Céline ...?</p><p>- I love her. But we no longer have sex. </p><p>Those words scared me. It seemed as if she was regretting not having sex with her and having to go find it somewhere else. Again, the crazy idea that Céline had agreed to open up their relationship to a third person haunted me, but I didn't dare ask her again.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>- In France there are more female directors than in any other part of the world ...</p><p>The one speaking was Adèle. She was reading aloud an interview she had given shortly before retiring to film. Magically, the sun coming through the window was going to hit her blond hair as if it were a spotlight and she was a reading in front of an audience in the theater. She had looked for the magazine in a kiosk the day we went to the museum. I listened to her like I had never heard anyone in my life, as if I passed an exam. Every word she said, I drank it because I knew it was the only way to love her, to love her well, as she wanted.</p><p>She kept reading aloud to me: now came the answer she had given to the interviewer, “I'm reading Pierre Bourdieu's Male Domination,” she had said to the interviewer, and had offered to read him a passage, just as she was now reading to me:</p><p>- "When your thought and perception is structured according to the very structures of the relationship of domination that is imposed on you, your acts of knowledge are inevitably acts of recognition, of submission."</p><p>End of Bourdieu's quote. And as a colophon, Adèle added:</p><p>- This is the discourse that must be changed. Otherwise, we will continue saying: "there are 20% of women who make films", but in the end it is still structural. We are still forced to know that we are women, like blacks in France, we are forced to be aware that they are black " .</p><p>She had said that in the interview, from an actress she became a philosopher in the blink of an eye. Instantly I understood that she would always keep talking about it. Ever since the director of her first movie had tricked her into making her feel special to end up stroking her on the couch at home. And she had been through that without daring to say anything to anyone, she had gone through the whole process for months, even for years. She was only twelve years old. That speech about male domination, meant the slap that she had not given to the director, the complaint that she had not dared to make in time. And she would never ever stop repeating that speech because she could never again go back and erase what had happened.</p><p>I knew the story because she had mentioned it at one of those dinners. Adèle kept the director's letters declaring her love in a veiled way, convincing her that what they had was so special. And she had never used those letters, because to use them was to acknowledge that she had been humiliated, that she had been used as if it were someone's property. I could not imagine the effort involved in fighting against that humiliation all my life, that was what she did when quoting Bourdieu and others.</p><p>- How many female filmakers do you know? Adèle was saying to me at the time.</p><p>And I kept thinking: it is no longer about the filmakers or the women. Adèle suffers, suffers so much, that I don't know what to do.</p><p>We were both silent. I was only able to think about her pain and wanted to hold her tight, but I knew that was only going to make her uncomfortable. For her, it was a philosophical discussion, an opportunity to win, and embracing her at that moment would have been more humiliation, forcing her to admit that it was about her and no one else.</p><p>Alain de Botton in his essay on love wrote:</p><p>“The more two people become familiar, the further the language they speak together moves away from the ordinary discourse defined by the dictionary. Familiarity creates a new language, an internal language of intimacy that bears reference to the story that the two lovers are weaving together and that others cannot easily understand. ”</p><p>Our language was beginning to build now and I was speechless. What could I say to give her thoughts wings and free her from that weight? I felt that our love was going to consist of feeding her hungry brain, but I was not Céline and as soon as the competition started I was losing.</p><p>Adèle was looking at me. Her greenish blue eyes ruthlessly scrutinized me, letting me know that she was waiting, that she was giving me my time to open my mind and heart to her, but I was terrified.</p><p>- Noémie, she said.</p><p>- What.</p><p>- What you think?</p><p>- I was thinking that ... maybe the interviewer didn't understand anything you said to him.</p><p>- I do not care about the interviewer, what interests me is that to be publish and read. Someone will know what to do with this.</p><p>I kept quiet. She, who was lying next to me, had propped herself up on her elbow to study my expression, to question me. Her body felt tense, like an animal about to jump.</p><p>- And you?</p><p>- Me?</p><p>- Do you understand what I'm saying?</p><p>- Of course I understand.</p><p>I looked at her offended. Was I really going to take an exam right now? What if I didn't understand each and every implication of what Bourdieu had written, what would happen to me?</p><p>That situation reminded me of Blue Is the Warmest Colour, the Kechiche movie: Adèle was uninteresting to Emma, uninteresting to her world, to her friends. She didn't fit in. I remembered that scene when Adèle sets out to serve food and drink for Emma's friends while Emma chats on high topics with others. It's a scene that still gives me the creeps. They despise her and she does not paint anything there. At some point someone reports that Adèle works in a kindergarten, babysitting, and they take the liberty of suggesting that she do something creative.</p><p>Suddenly, I felt immensely sad, I felt helpless, like the protagonist of Kechiche. I sat up on the sofa where we were both lying a moment ago and shouted at the edge of tears:</p><p>- Why don't you give me time to open up? You want it all now, like this (I snapped my fingers).</p><p>And I left the room like an exhalation, before falling apart in front of her eyes.</p><p>I cried looking out of my bedroom window, like I was fifteen again and alone in the world.</p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p><p>I took a sports bag and started throwing some photos inside. I went to the room to check if I had everything and I saw the double bed and the wedding photos on the table. I left them where they were.</p><p>I closed the door and went downstairs. The last discussion we had was horrible. I had to wait until he was not there to pick everything up.</p><p>I drive slowly through the city with tears in my eyes. I stop at the light and look at everything as if it came out of a nightmare. A month ago we were still "together". I was stupid, I misbehaved. I decided not to tell him immediately what happened and I was delaying it because if it was incredible even for me. How was he going to take it? I was ashamed, that was all. Shame of behaving like a girl, of falling in love in a few weeks, of sending everything to hell for an "illusion". Because what had really happened? She and I hardly knew each other and after the shooting she avoided me. We met once at Le Perchoir, to celebrate his birthday, then at Cannes. </p><p>That's all. Whenever I called her, we couldn't see each other. She just said that: "now I can't" and promised me that we would soon spend time together again.</p><p>- Why? Is it because of Céline?</p><p>She gave no further explanations. I didn't want to bully her, I didn't even deserve an explanation.</p><p>It had all been like a dream. And instead of telling Simon what had happened to me, the feelings she had aroused in me, instead of face reality: I thought of her when we fucked... I put it off. I thought anyway he and I would hardly see each other in the following months, because most of the time we would busy with our projects. I backed off, that's what happened. I was afraid of being alone.</p><p>So, she appeared at the door in July, when she returned from Poland. I was stunned. I did not know what to say. Simon was at home, so I told Adèle to wait for me at the corner cafe.</p><p>I went down.</p><p>She was standing at the door of the cafe, smoking. She had not wanted to enter.</p><p>My hands were shaking.</p><p>- Shall we go inside? I asked.</p><p>We went inside and sat facing each other, at the most hidden table.</p><p>- What did you say to your husband? She asked.</p><p>I was like... not knowing what to say.</p><p>- I said I was going down for a moment to buy.</p><p>She smiles wryly. I also get ironic:</p><p>- And you? I finally see you, what did you say to Céline?</p><p>Her attitude angers me, that way of asking me directly about Simon, without further ado.</p><p>- Céline got sick and couldn't leave her, she responds at last.</p><p>- And now she's okay?</p><p>Nods. She seems angry and sad.</p><p>- Why didn't you tell me anything before, why didn't we meet?</p><p>- Why haven't you left him yet?</p><p>I shrugged cynically. I did not have a good answer.</p><p>- I was delaying it.</p><p>- Why?</p><p>- Leaving my home and everything what he and I had built.</p><p>She completes the sentence:</p><p>- For a madness.</p><p>I looked her straight in the eye. She was right: I was ashamed that everyone thought I had been swept away by an illusion that would vanish into thin air as soon as I opened my eyes.</p><p>- Because you did not want him to call you a lesbian, your parents to see you as a "lesbian".</p><p>I close my eyes. I don't want to hear it. She keeps attacking me:</p><p>- Because this that has happened to us is nothing, is going nowhere, has no future, right?</p><p>- No. You disappeared.</p><p>- It was for a while. I told you: Céline needed me.</p><p>- And how much longer is she going to need you?</p><p>- Whatever it takes. I will always be there for her.</p><p>She is about to say: you don't understand it anyway. She looks at me with anger. I can't bear her gaze and I look down at the table. The waiter comes with the coffee we have ordered. I look up again and they are there: their fierce eyes continue to look at me.</p><p>- Forgive me, I say on the verge of tears. I think I wanted to hurt you.</p><p>- Don't cry.</p><p>That's an order. She doesn't even intend to comfort me, she's so hurt that all she wants is to shut me up.</p><p>- I want to be with you. That's it. And I don't see how. I feel like shit if you put me behind Céline.</p><p>- Oh, you're so selfish!</p><p>She looks at her coffee. What is she thinking about? Will she get up and leave me forever?</p><p>- I'm sorry. I have been weak, I have been afraid.</p><p>- Leave him right now.</p><p>For an instant, I don't understand what she is asking me. She insists:</p><p>- Do you want to come with me? Well, let him.</p><p>I open my eyes wide. She is asking me to do it "now", she no longer gives me time. She is able to go out that door and never want to see me again.</p><p>- It's okay. I'm going to tell him today.</p><p>- I'll wait for you here, she says.</p><p>I get up. I have no strength. I leave the coffee and her behind and head to the exit without saying anything.</p><p>I call the elevator. I have a knot in my stomach.</p><p>I found Simon in the kitchen, drinking beer from the bottle.</p><p>- Where did you go?</p><p>- To buy, I told you.</p><p>He stared at me, he didn't believe a word. I sat down, like someone about to pass out.</p><p>- Listen to me.</p><p>He slammed the bottle down on the table.</p><p>- No. You're going to start with that again.</p><p>- We need to talk.</p><p>- We have already talked. We have been separated for a long time and it is normal that you feel disappointed, but it is work. You are also going to start the tour now to promote your film.</p><p>- Is not that.</p><p>If it wasn't that, he didn't want to hear it anyway. He picked up his beer and turned around.</p><p>- I'm in love.</p><p>He did not expect that. He turned to me in surprise, he had crazy eyes. He did not expect that I would say it so clearly, with all the words, without excuses, without hesitation.</p><p>- With who? That actress?</p><p>He knew it. Somehow it had become clear to him before that something had happened between the two of us during the shooting, but since nothing had changed, since I had not packed and everything remained the same, we had looked elsewhere. Now, with these words, I forced him and I to look straight ahead.</p><p>- Listen to me, I said.</p><p>- I hear you, he said, but it sounded like a warning.</p><p>His posture, standing with his arms apart from his body, as if he were going to slap me, embarrassed me. It can't be, he's not going to hit me, I told myself while traying to find the words.</p><p>- I love her. I want to be with her.</p><p>The slap came without me expecting it. Although I had admitted the possibility, I didn't really expect it. He fell on me with all the weight. I was speechless, horrified, clutching my face as if he had smashed it. Then he got down on his knees, I think, pulled me to stay, but I ran to the door without looking back.</p><p>I got to the cafe. Adèle was still there, she looked at me up and down madly. She couldn't believe it.</p><p>- He hit you! She muttered, she couldn't say anything else.</p><p>She wanted to go and break his face, but I grabbed to stop her. Now everybody were looking at us.</p><p>- "Let's go!" I yelled.</p><p>She drove me to her apartment. All the way she was staring at the road like she was seeing the fight that didn't happen, the pending fight between her and Simon. I had my hand on her leg, to calm her, to make sure we were there, safe. We got to her house and when I got out of the car, I started crying again silently.</p><p>- Come.</p><p>She gently took my arm and we entered.</p>
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<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>- He has broken your lip, she told me.</p><p>She put her fingers close to my mouth. Her face was inches from mine. She kissed me delicately at the corner of my lips and ran the tip of his tongue all over the wound. It hurt sweetly, turned me on, I caught her face and kissed her on the mouth. She looked at me seriously for a moment, I saw her eyes go from my hair to my chin and back to my eyes. We were so close that I felt her breath on my wound.</p><p>Adèle led me by the hand to her room, sat at the foot of the bed and looked at me. I started undressing. I didn't know what she wanted me to do. When I was naked I approached her, but she stopped me. She asked me to lie down on the bed. She wanted to look at me while I masturbate.</p><p> </p><p>I opened my eyes and she slept next to me. The sun was gone from the window frame. For a long time I did not move, thinking about what had happened. I turned my face towards her, but I didn't want to wake her up, so I settled for looking at her like that, I only saw her hair and her hand.<br/>I got up, put on anything, and went out onto the balcony. There was still daylight. I looked at the crowded street. From up there people looked like ants. I sat on the balcony with a glass of water, which I drank slowly as if it were wine. Remembering<br/>After a while, she peeked out.</p><p>- Are you hungry?</p><p>I nodded.</p><p>She came back with olives, cheese, wine.</p><p>- Your blood is everywhere, she said.</p><p>She was smiling.</p><p>I told her that I didn't even feel my face anymore and she kissed me.</p><p>- My God, what the very beast has done to you.</p><p>The phone rang. It was Céline.</p><p>- We have arranged, Adèle informed me.</p><p>- Now?</p><p>- No. After dinner. Do you want to come?</p><p>I nodded, not sure if I wanted to. I didn't want to, actually. Melancholy invaded me now. That feeling that she and I were far away. She was looking into the distance and I was looking at her.</p><p>I looked at her hands: they both hold the wine glass and spin it. Those hands had been on my body. Remembering, the fire within me was rekindled.</p><p>- These months have been hell, she began to say.</p><p>She found out that Ruggia was going to shoot a sequel to <em>The Devils</em> and that had forced her to remember the movie they made together as a child. Céline - who if not - had been there, supporting her, and they had ("had" her and Céline) decided to make public the abuse she had suffered at that time. There was a journalist investigating and interviewing witnesses.</p><p>I was still silent, looking at her, and she was still looking at the horizon. I thought: witnesses? Can there be witnesses to something like that and they don't go to the police? And I thought: Céline, Céline, always she. Adèle had walked away from me and had taken refuge in Céline. That idea made me sink like a paper boat in a raft of water.</p><p>- And where are you going to speak?</p><p>- On television, she replied.</p><p>I felt that she was not asking for my opinion, she was just telling me, but I dared to say:</p><p>- I'm afraid they'll hurt you.</p><p>- It is the only way to put everything in its place. Until now I am the one who suffers and is ashamed of what happened, but it is he who should be ashamed. Also, I can stop him from abusing other children, other actors. Now I feel like I have gathered enough calm to talk about it. Before I was afraid of breaking in front of everyone, I was afraid of being judged.</p><p>- Being judged for what? You were only twelve years old.</p><p>- I went to Ruggia's house on my own, every Saturday, for three years and I didn't say anything to my parents.</p><p>- I thought it had been a few months.</p><p>- No. When the shooting ended, we still saw each other.</p><p>I was stunned, but she continued:</p><p>- The worst thing is that my father doesn't want me to speak. He has written me an email.</p><p>She looked at me in the eye:</p><p>- Can I read it to you?</p><p>- Of course.</p><p>She went to look for the email her father had sent to her. Seeing her returning with her cell phone in her hand, ready to read something so intimate, so painful and so important to her, broke my heart.</p><p>She read: Her father asked her not to talk about everything so as not to "cause more pain", because to speak was to make public "something intimate" that could only be overcome by a psychologist. Again, he left her alone. I wondered how it was possible for a family to let their young daughter go to a forty-year-old man's house every Saturday and find out nothing. I put my glass on the table and approached to her. I rested my head on her shoulder. I took the phone and kissed her hand.</p><p>As we were going out, I hid the slap with a little makeup, but I didn't want to put on too much. I put on a baseball cap to camouflage myself, because I was afraid of meeting Simon on the street.</p><p>Adèle looked at me amused.</p><p>- It looks like you're going to rob someone.</p><p>My jaw was still loose or so it seemed to me. Even with the makeup, I had finger marks on my face and a broken lip, I couldn't do much. Adèle and Céline's friends, just seeing me in the light of the first bar we went to, were speechless and then tried to start a conversation, but it was all very forced.</p><p>Céline arrived. I greeted her as if nothing, but I hated that she was there. See looked at Adèle as if she were her doctor and asked if she was better. Until she answered, she would not look at anyone else, so Adèle nodded, trying to move on to something else quickly.</p><p>- What about you? What happened to you? She asked me, realizing now that my face was like a map.</p><p>I smiled, but didn't want to explain. She stared at us both for a moment. Traying to make sense. Then she changed the subject: she had gone to see a movie at her childhood cinema, the Utopia cinema.</p><p>- Which movie?</p><p>- Parasites.</p><p>- How is it?</p><p>- Very interesting. I love black humor. Puts the entire system upside down. Well, I don't want to tell you about the movie, you'd better go see it.</p><p>- Are you going to see <em>Portrait</em> when they premiere it?</p><p>- Sure! That is going to be a catharsis.</p><p>I hated her. My God, how I hated her and this feeling did me no good, since it was so important to Adèle and I would have to continue seeing her. She was so intellectual and so important in Adèle's life that I felt nothing beside her. How could I avoid it? She hated me too, although she surely didn't want to admit it.</p><p>As the night wore on and we drank wine, our complicity glances became so evident that her friends dared to ask:</p><p>- Well?</p><p>Adèle smiled at every answer. They insisted amusingly:</p><p>- What's going on?</p><p>They had romantic eyes and little hearts came out of their ears. They were determined to get the whole story out of us and they weren't going to stop. I looked at Céline, who had no imaginary little hearts but battle axes, her gaze going from Adèle's face to mine, and back to Adèle's.</p>
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<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>- And what is so special about that movie? Asked Adèle.</p><p>It was obvious to me that she wanted to change the subject. For Céline it was also. Reluctantly she replied:</p><p>- You'll have to go to see it.</p><p>There was an awkward silence.</p><p>- What I like about your movie, said Alisa, is that it is not Manichean.</p><p>Céline paid attention, but you could tell she was making an effort.</p><p>Alisa continued:</p><p>- It does not show bad men who martyr these women on the island, but we know that reality is waiting outside, that later, when they separate, reality will continue on its way, crushing everything.</p><p>Céline made efforts to concentrate and respond to that.</p><p>- Well, crushing everything, I don't know. There will be their memories, that they will not be able to crush it. The memory of having lived a true love, which compared to what will come ... What comes now will not be able to erase what has been lived, it will not even be able to overshadow it. It will be ridiculous in all its harshness, Héloïse's marriage, I mean.</p><p>We all stared sideways at each other.</p><p>Céline was talking about us, it was obvious. We: our little shoddy love would not reach even the sole of the shoe what the two of them had had, a love in capital letters.</p><p>- The best thing about the film, said Adèle, is that it does not try to solve the whole thing with a dramatic turn to leave us all happy, the two do not run away in a boat or flee their destiny, but the viewer is forced to confront Reality: Marianne has to go, Héloïse has to get married. That's it. Life goes on. They have lived their love fully for a time, they have collaborated and they have grown, and now we must look forward.</p><p>Adèle wasn't talking about the movie either.</p><p>- I'm going to the toilet, I said.</p><p>I went into the toilet not to scream right there. I looked at myself in the mirror: the scarred face, the split lip, the broken heart and Céline despising me. Adèle had looked at the ground the entire time.</p><p>I stayed in the toilet for a while, as much as I could, but had to go back. As I approached the table, I realized that the girls were not there and Adèle and Céline were arguing. I looked for the girls, but they were next to me.</p><p>- Don't go, dear, they told me.</p><p>I stood there, not knowing what to do.</p><p>- Are you coming with us? We go to the bar to have our drink.</p><p> </p><p>Céline and Adèle were distant the rest of the night. When we left, she and Adèle were still talking for a while apart. I was waiting. I didn't want to get in. And since the others were already gone, I was alone, a couple of meters further, smoking. Thinking: What if she tells me that she is going with her now? What if she tells me that she is coming with us? Finally, they said goodbye: with a quick kiss on the lips, yes: they kissed.</p><p> </p><p>Adele came to where I was. I did not know what to say, of course it crossed my mind to ask her what had happened, what Céline wanted, what it meant that they had kissed on their lips ... All of that was spinning in my head while we took out our bikes and we got going.</p><p>We got to his house and took the elevator up. I didn't look at her.</p><p>- What's the matter? She said.</p><p>It was just obvious that something was wrong, but as she put it, it seemed like it was just happening to me. I just didn't have a clear mind with so much wine and I avoided telling her how I felt, I didn't want to look like a fool asking for explanations when she and I were just starting out.</p><p>But she insisted.</p><p>- What's the matter, Noemie?</p><p>We enter her house. I didn't want to argue and I knew that if a open my mouth, I was going to explode, I just didn't want to show how jealous I was, but I also didn't know how to hide my feelings.</p><p>Fed up with my attitude, she mumbled something and went to the room. I stood at the door of the room looking at her. She took off her clothes and threw herself face down on the bed. So I took off my clothes, too, and stretched out beside her. My head was spinning.</p><p>Finally, I launched:</p><p>- Tell me something.</p><p>She did not move or say anything.</p><p>- You tried to forget me, right?</p><p>She raised her face from the mattress and looked directly at me.</p><p>- Yes, she answered without hesitation.</p><p>She said it defiantly.</p><p>- And did you think about me again when there was no other choice but to see us?</p><p>- Yes, in Cannes I couldn't get you out of my head. I tried, but I saw you every day. I smelled you, I touched you, I just wanted to be by your side. I couldn't hide it anymore.</p><p>I looked at her in the eye.</p><p>- Okay. And why did you want to forget me?</p><p>- For Céline.</p><p>It was the wine. The wine made her jump and I dared to hear everything, even the last thing she had to say.</p><p>- She is suffering, she said, by way of apology.</p><p>I blurted out:</p><p>- She's still in love with you.</p><p>- Yeah.</p><p>- And you?</p><p>- I love her.</p><p>Those words hurt me. It wasn't the first time she had told me, but it hurt over and over again. I blinked.</p><p>- And why aren't you with her?</p><p>- I don't want her that way.</p><p>I kept looking into her eyes as if I was reading inside her and I didn't want her to stop.</p><p>- Harming her is the last thing I want in life.</p><p>That left me KO. I'm speechless. In other words, she wouldn't hurt her, but she would hurt me, if necessary.</p><p>- And what do you plan to do now?</p><p>- What do you mean?</p><p>- You're hurting her, it's obvious. What do we have to do to avoid hurting her?</p><p>- Don't be angry.</p><p>- Answer me.</p><p>She put her face back on the mattress. It was difficult not to caress her hair now, her back, not to kiss those moles and lose my head, but I held myself back, I wanted us to clarify our relationship at once.</p><p>She struggled to move. She was drunk. She came up to me and started kissing my neck.</p><p>- Answer please.</p><p>- I can't forget you, I can't, I can't.</p><p>And each “I can't” was followed by a kiss.</p>
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<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>Adèle Haenel's email to her father.</p><p>April 2019</p><p>"My dear father:</p><p>I will try to explain things clearly. This issue dates back 18 years. If I waited so long to expose the events, it is due to a series of things that made it impossible to speak for a long time, nowadays many other things make remaining silent unbearable.</p><p>What made talking impossible was, among other things, the fact that Christophe was kind, that he had done so much for me and that without him I would be nothing. What I clearly consider today as pedophilia and harassment, I forced myself at that time to think that it was love. How can I tell you? Inside, I always knew that something was not right, that it was not love, and when I went to his house I felt so dirty that I wanted to die. I found it disgusting, but I felt indebted to him because he did a lot for me. He said to me incessantly: "It is not the same with us, the others could not understand it."</p><p>He always did things the same way. He approached me, kissed me and began to caress me. I got up, he followed me and ended up sitting on the footrest, which was so small that he couldn't get close to me. He didn't want to look things in the eye. That is to say, he could not slap me and physically force me, because in that case he could not have avoided seeing himself for what he is. That is, a 40-year-old man who abuses a child of 12, 13 and 14 years. Do you understand? It is not out of respect for the girl that I was that he did not, it was out of fear of having to face himself.</p><p>I felt so dirty at the time, I was so embarrassed that I didn't want to talk about it with anyone. Silence is never without violence. Silence is immense violence. You probably remember that time, from the violence I suffered alone, and you probably also remember that at that time I cut off contacts with everyone. I left my agent, I stopped the casting sessions, I myself abandoned the idea of making movies. I decided to survive and go alone instead of staying. Who came to see me to help me, for my well-being, for my career? All of Christophe's kind consideration did not prevent him from moving away from me and pursuing his political commitment in favor of children, his life in the world of cinema, as if nothing had happened. I disappeared, and with me the risk of being caught someday by his dirty adventure disappeared.</p><p>What a pity for him that one day, at the end of a party, I ran into Christel Baras again, who later chose me for "Water Lilies", and returned. Fragile, but I came back. From that moment, and largely thanks to meeting Céline (Sciamma), who is the most important meeting of my life and career, sharpened by a desire for revenge, I became a sword, stronger, until the about to become what I am today. I am talking about social status. I am socially powerful now, and Christophe has only weakened. But this reversal of the balance of power is in itself insufficient to fight against the balance of power imprinted from early adolescence: I was still afraid. My heart was beating fast, my hands were sweating, and my thoughts were clouding the times I met Christophe.</p><p>To tell you something more, what you thought was 18 years of silence, I associate them with the feeling of being gagged, with many lies that fit everyone. For example, I was very often in front of people, even people I love very much, who, without me talking about this, would say to me: "No, Christophe is a good person." What I mean is that, from what I tell you in part in this email, you can imagine that "a good person" is not exactly a proper description of Christophe.</p><p>I want to tell you something else. The remaining reasons why I made the decision to speak are a documentary about Michael Jackson called 'Leaving Neverland', and also that I learned by chance that Christophe has launched a casting for a new movie, whose main characters are Chloé and Joseph, like in 'The Devils'. You may see this detail as something small, but for me it is huge. It means that he completely denies my story. If I speak to Mediapart, after having foreseen other possibilities, it is because the journalist is going to lead a thorough investigation.</p><p>It seems to me that you think I am trying to get attention with these revelations, or that I am trying to drag my psychoanalysis into the public arena. You're missing the point. If I'm talking, it's not to burn Christophe. It is to put the world back on the right track, a world turned upside down. If I am speaking, it is so that the torturers stop strutting and are forced to face things. If I'm talking, it's for shame to change sides. If I am speaking, it is so that this exploitation of future children, women, stops, so that there is no longer the possibility of speaking twice.</p><p>You talk to me about forgiveness, but let me ask you, has anyone asked for forgiveness? Why? I understand your decision not to speak, it is completely your right. As for me, I think that if we do things together, we can do something really good, which would be to look clearly at our past, which came close to destroying me, destroying us and make it a gesture of love.</p><p>Forgiving Christophe is not my main concern. In any case, he is the only one who can offer forgiveness himself. My main concern is to live my life as alive as possible, with my family and the people I love. " </p>
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<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p><p>Adèle has woken up and is looking at me from the balcony. I pretend to be asleep for a while. She moves around the room, comes and goes, I keep my eyes closed. Occasionally I open one to see where she is. I look at her silhouette silhouetted by the low morning sun. She is looking at the street from the balcony. So, I turn around, roll onto my back and look at the ceiling: I feel a pressure in my chest, I'm about to have an anxiety attack and I don't want it to hit me in her apartment, not now. No, this is not the time. I count to ten. I control my breaths. One two three four five six..</p><p>I notice that she has climbed into bed and when I realize it, I have her face half a meter from mine.</p><p>- What's wrong?</p><p>- I'm nervous.</p><p>- Why?</p><p>- I can not talk now.</p><p>I see that she examines me, like a little girl, while I restart the account mentally, slowly: one, two, three, four ...</p><p>- Noé, what are you doing?</p><p>I close my eyes, tighten my eyelids. I don't want her to see me now and this pressure doesn't help me control it.</p><p>- Noé, you're scaring me.</p><p>It's like I have water in my ears, I hear her through the water. She lies down next to me and hugs me tightly and kisses my cheek. Until I calm down, she doesn't stop hugging me so tightly that I can't breathe.</p><p>Is magic. Her embrace has calmed me. I look at her between surprised and happy.</p><p>- What happened? She asks.</p><p>- Sometimes I have anxiety attacks.</p><p>She is looking at me with that intellectual face, processing the information I have given her.</p><p>- Since when?</p><p>- It's been so long since I remember.</p><p>She strokes my face with one finger: the eyebrows, the nose, the lips.</p><p>- Why don't you let me touch you?</p><p>- What do you mean?</p><p>- When we make it, you don't let me. Do you think I'm not going to do it right?</p><p>She laughs.</p><p>- Do not laugh. I'm depressed that you don't let me touch you there.</p><p>- "There?", she laughs.</p><p>- Stop laughing.</p><p>Then she takes my hand and puts it between her legs. It is wet, hot, soft. I feel like I'm going down on the roller coaster. I look at her, I see how she gets excited, how she closes her eyes and hides her face with one arm, but I want to see her. I do my best to see how she reaches orgasm. I climb onto her, prop myself up on one elbow, but still can't get a good angle. I look at her. I look into her eyes, but she closes them. I like that she can't stop, that she can't control it and that wants more.</p><p>- Look at me, I ask her.</p><p>She opens her eyes and looks at me. My God, she is so beautiful. I just want to see that moment when her pupils dilate as she clings to my neck like she's about to fall. When she shudders and ends, and I shudder with her, I lie down next to her so she can fuck me well.</p><p> </p><p>Finally, when it is already eleven, we manage to get out of bed. Adèle has an interview on the radio. I listen to how she talks on her mobile, I also hear the guy on the radio. They laugh from time to time. She has a natural grace, she has everything under control, she moves as if she were the owner of the universe. I like that about her. I don't imagine her anxiously. Her leg is crossed and she is naked on the sofa. I think: if listeners could see her now, they would fall on their backs.</p><p>- And why do you have those attacks? She says when the interview ends.</p><p>- I guess it is my nervous system, I am a very nervous person although it does not seem so.</p><p>- You seem pretty calm.</p><p>- Yes, but I get stressed easily.</p><p>- Is it about Simon? Céline?</p><p>- It's always about something.</p><p>I take my cell phone and show it to her.</p><p>- He called me, I say, I didn't get it, but he sent me a message.</p><p>- And what does it say?</p><p>- He wants us to talk.</p><p>- And?</p><p>I shrug.</p><p>- I don't know if he has the right to ask me for anything after the slap.</p><p>- Very well, she says.</p><p>She is dressed, she is standing, she is in a hurry. She is going out because she is going to meet a friend. I'm jealous, but I try not to be noticed. I hug her waist to say goodbye. She bends down and tells me.</p><p>- Don't meet him alone, please.</p><p>I like that she wants to protect me.</p><p>I am left alone in her flat. I look out onto the balcony and watch her ride her bike.</p><p>I walk around the flat looking for clues to get to know her better. I go into the room and look for something. Something to give me a clue of what's going to happen to the two of us. In the living room I have seen a couple of photos of Céline. In the room none.</p><p>When I return to the living room it occurs to me to look in the drawers for photo books. I imagine she has the photos in her computer, but there must be printed photos somewhere.</p><p>Here it is, less hidden than I expected. I take a large white photo album and open it. Oh, my God, oh, my God. I look at the photos: they got married. She and Céline got married. Adèle in a lilac dress and Céline in a suit with a white flower in her buttonhole. Céline is flushed with happiness. And there is the family. How many years ago? I look at the date of the album: 2014. Not so many years ago. How many years were they together? Actually, I don't know. I imagine they started in 2008, after filming the movie where they met, but I'm not sure, I haven't dared to ask. When I'm done looking at the photos, I carefully put the album in its place, I'm afraid she'll find out that I've been spying.</p><p>I feel a feeling of desolation, as if I were watching my love story with Adèle already finished. Sorry for Céline, but I'm relieved not to be her now. I imagine her alone in her house, the house that was also Adèle's, spending hours remembering and imagining her happy in the arms of another woman. But at the same time I am jealous of her, of everything they have lived through and everything it means.</p><p>Why hadn't I found out that they were married and possibly divorced? Or not? Again I feel like an intruder, a stranger and someone who is only there to fill a void that Céline can no longer fill. So I go to the shower with the idea of going to see Simon, wishing him to hit me.</p>
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<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p><p>I go out into the street ready to misbehave, like a little girl who disobeys her parents. Why do I have the feeling that I'm not worth anything? I have written a message to Simon and I have met him in a cafe.</p><p>I see him from afar and he sees me. When I get to where he is, he scolds me:</p><p>- Why do you look like that?</p><p>- What do I look like?</p><p>- You look like a boy.</p><p>- Just because I don't make up doesn't mean I look like a man.</p><p>He remains silent. He's upset, but he doesn't want to get me out of my mind.</p><p>- When did all this happen?</p><p>- What exactly.</p><p>He makes an effort to use the word that denies.</p><p>- When exactly did you fall in love with her?</p><p>- In October the last year.</p><p>- And why did you stay with me?</p><p>I have to think about it. The only reason is that she didn't come after me before, but I can't tell him that. There's actually another reason: I didn't have ovaries to leave him anyway, even if she wasn't next to me. But I will not be so clear.</p><p>- I was afraid.</p><p>- Can't you see it?</p><p>- What.</p><p>- That we are going to lose our story, we are going to let it go on a whim of a week in October.</p><p>I stay silent. It's not a whim, but he doesn't want to hear it anyway.</p><p>- Short hair doesn't suit you, he tells me.</p><p>- I like it.</p><p>- And why are you wearing that jacket? It's hot.</p><p>- Are you going to stop judging me?</p><p>- I know you. I know you are not well. When you leave yourself that way it means you have low self-esteem.</p><p>- And how you take advantage of that!</p><p>We are already fighting again.</p><p>I look him up and down.</p><p>- You have not made up either, you are wearing a T-shirt and jeans, it doesn't seem that you have split your head getting ready.</p><p>He snorts. All I'm saying is nonsense, he wants to get to the point, he wants to grab my wrist and drag me home.</p><p>- Why did you call me? I say.</p><p>- I want to know what will happen to us. What are you thinking to do. I know you are with her, but I imagine that at some point you will regret it, if you haven't already.</p><p>- And why should I regret it?</p><p>- Because that relationship is not going anywhere. I'm sure she's one of those kind of bitch who collect lovers ... What are your plans for the future? Let's see.</p><p>Snorts. He is eager to show me how wrong I am.</p><p>- I think you need to do something different to find yourself, you are going through some of your crises.</p><p>I interrupt him:</p><p>- I want the divorce.</p><p>He looks at me surprised, but tries to stay calm:</p><p>- Seriously: what do you plan to do? Are you going to leave everything for such a story?</p><p>I don't answer because ... What is "everything" for him? And what is "such a story"? A story "like this". Just tries to make me see all black so that I return to his arms. Destroy me to possess me. He thinks he has everything under control, but I am with Adèle, I love her so much that it is impossible for me to even consider for one single moment returning to his side. He doesn't know, I am spellbound. Adèle has bewitched me. There is no way back. But I don't want to tell him anything about this. They are my deepest feelings, for which there is no explanation.</p><p>He is now listing the things that I will lose if I continue my madness.</p><p>- Our marriage, your career ...</p><p>- And what does my career have to do with it?</p><p>- It is obvious that with that look no one is going to give you any interesting role, except that of a tomboy with problems.</p><p>I get up and leave without saying goodbye.</p><p>I have left the waiter standing next to our table, waiting for the order.</p><p>As I walk away from him, I feel real, strong, happy. I had been thinking all the way about what we would say and it has been as I imagined. My morale rises.</p><p>But he runs after me and calls me.</p><p>- I love you! He screams.</p><p>He dares not touch me.</p><p>I get on the bike and go away without looking back. I'm scared. After the high in morale comes the slump. It is always so.</p><p> </p><p>I ride my bike through the city. The sun, the people on the terraces and Adèle in my head.</p><p>She is sitting on a terrace. She's with someone. It makes my heart skip a beat. I stop further, turn and look for her. I go back walking slowly with the bike beside me. I'm looking for her face among clients, but I don't want her to see me. There is she. And she's with Céline and someone else. She is happy. Why hasn't she taken me with them? I think Céline doesn't want to see me and has asked her not to take me. She, of course, accepts. She accepts everything for Céline. But soon we will go on tour, we will stay in hotels, in different cities and we will have to see each other every day, what will happen then? I imagine that Adèle will ask me not to have gestures of affection in front of Céline, but they will. They will not kiss on the mouth, because they no longer have sex, but they will hold hands, from the waist, they will caress their hair carelessly, during any conversation, because their love has no end, I am dying of jealousy.</p><p>I go to Adèle's house thinking that I have to take my own apartment. I can't keep up with her leaving me at her house waiting for her like I'm the dog.</p><p>When she gets home, I've been through all the circles of hell and I'm lying on the mattress. She looks at me shocked.</p><p>- You're good?</p><p>- No, I moan.</p><p>- What's wrong?</p><p>I do not want to answer. Only toads and snakes would come out of my mouth.</p><p>She takes off her shoes with her foot and lies down next to me. I look at his feet. One of my sexual fantasies is to lick her feet, another is to ask her to tie me and another to ask her to hit me, but I will never tell her. She would hate me. She hates submission and I don't know how to love otherwise.</p><p>She strokes my face with her finger as she reads a letter from the mailbox. Then drop the paper onto the floor. I look at her. Her gaze is lost.</p><p>- All good?</p><p>- Yes, it's just advertising.</p><p>- How about your friend?</p><p>- Good. I haven't seen her in a long time.</p><p>- I've seen you with Céline.</p><p>She looks at me in surprise.</p><p>- Did you go after me?</p>
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<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p><p>Adèle was angry that I had gone to see Simon alone.</p><p>She could not imagine the pleasure that reprimand gave me. It meant that I was the most important thing to her, more than Céline, more than her work commitments. We were quickly learning everything there was to know about each other. We were building our lives together. I learned, for example, that when she got angry, she look out the window in silence for a while, with her arms crossed, and only after a few hours she is ready to talk about it. I just had to wait for her to come, which was sometimes difficult because I was looking forward to reconciliation.</p><p>She told me:</p><p>- You are like a child, how is it possible that you went alone, without saying anything to see that beast?</p><p>And said:</p><p>- What I have to do? Hey? What do I have to do to make you don't feel bad for Céline? You have to know that I'm going to keep seeing her, that there is nothing you can do to make me stop loving her, because I don't want to and it's not fair. She only wants to see me once in a while, alone, to talk about her things, and it's not fair to impose your presence on her when she needs to talk to me.</p><p>- Well, don't lie to me. If you meet Céline tell me, I replied.</p><p>- She appeared with my friend, they met on the street by chance.</p><p>That was the explanation.</p><p>I did not discuss it. I was silent looking at her, but she did not blink.</p><p>- If you don't trust me, I can't do anything.</p><p>When we were arguing, I wanted to kiss her. I made my most seductive face, but she was unflappable.</p><p>- Are you going to trust?</p><p>I nodded to end our little fight and spread my arms around her neck to bring her face closer to mine, her lips to mine. She smiled.</p><p>- Sassy girl.</p><p> </p><p>That August night, Adèle and I saw a movie. We leave the window open and go to bed naked, we caress each other gently looking at the screen, without thinking about anything more than feeling our skin, watching the images pass in front of our eyes.</p><p>I remembered the first time we slept together. That time on the island, when we saw <em>Vertigo</em> . She was next to me, but I couldn't touch her. And I pretended to focus on the screen, while James Stewart chased Kim Novak, blonde like Héloïse, to shore, and was scared because she was going to jump into the water.</p><p>- This scene inspires ours, said Adèle. When you follow me and spy on me, like a detective and you don't know what my intentions are, and think I'm going to jump.</p><p>- And what does it mean?</p><p>I ask her because I like her to explain things to me, but as I listen to her a small smile appears at the corner of my lips.</p><p>She looks at me without deciding to answer. She is fascinated by that smile.</p><p>- So?</p><p>- Nothing.</p><p>I'm flirting wildly. If she kisses me now, we'll make love. It's something I want to do, almost from the beginning.</p><p>But she continues to hide.</p><p>- Chasing someone, looking at her from a distance, without being able to see her face, and then running after that person as if she were pulling us ... It symbolizes desire.</p><p>I pretend to be interested, but I only have eyes for her eyes, for her mouth. I think she is uncomfortable. She has noticed and now does not know what to do. Doesn't she want us to make love? I dont believe it. I know she wants me, she knows I want her. She has proposed to come to my room and watch this movie together to spend the night with me, stick to my skin and feel it. I burn inside and I want her to put out my fire. I want to ask her to make love interpreting our characters, I will call her Héloïse and she will call me Marianne. But it won't happen, that day at least. She is with Céline, is the conclusion that I drew that day. She is with Céline and she does not want to spoil the film by having an affair on the set. She is professional. When <em>Vertigo </em>ends and we turn each to the opposite side, frustration makes me tighten my eyelids.</p><p>That was what I remembered watching the movie in her flat. I don't remember what it was, because I wasn't paying attention, but she was laughing next to me, so it must be a comedy. I hid my face in her neck satisfied. I thought: now you are mine, now we can touch each other, love each other, and neither Céline nor anyone else can stop it. I liked to smell it. I breathed in her scent, hiding my face in her neck. Sometimes I would put my mouth next to her armpit when we were like this, watching movies, or she would sleep next to me. I breathed in the scent of her skin and turned me on.</p><p>She had no idea of my inner world, but I could know hers because she loved to tell me things she had learned, probably with Céline. They had been together for at least eight years and had become a woman with her. A third of her life, from eighteen to twenty-six (?). She had learned everything from that woman, probably even how to kiss, how to touch, how to make love. In our film there is a scene in which Héloïse says to Marianne: “I know the gestures, I have imagined them thinking of you”. In other words, Héloïse talks about knowing how to make love to a woman because she imagined it. And it's exactly what she could have said to Céline the first time.</p><p>The first time they had sex, Adèle was a virgin, I'm sure. Why do I believe it? Because she had had that traumatic experience with the film director when she was a child and then she moved away from everything, including the cinema, but also from others. Intimacy with other people scared her, she was not herself, she constantly lied, she acted in real life to survive. She has said it, that at that time "it was split in two". I'd bet the first time she let anyone touch her was Céline. I can't imagine what that woman has gone through with a baby of eighteen, twenty, twenty-two ... Because Adèle is a baby and always will be. A flirtatious girl who wants to attract everyone's attention. A girl eager to know the world, who smiles at you and disarms you. How much she will have made Céline suffer! Even without wanting to.</p><p>In silence, next to her, I wonder: when was the first time that Adèle wanted to sleep with another woman? When was the first time she didn't feel anything when they kissed? How could she have told Céline that they can no longer continue as a couple, that she likes someone else? I can't imagine how sad it will have been for both of them.</p><p>I got up and went for water. From the door I observed her naked body on the bed, the TV light on her skin, her girlish face smiling with an episode of Fleabag, probably. I went into the kitchen, got a beer and went out on the balcony.</p><p>That night I dreamed that I was running after her in an endless race on the beach and saw her blonde hair tied up in a bun, always on her back. I couldn't reach her. I was dressed as Marianne and she was dressed as Héloïse.</p>
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<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Chapter 14</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p><p>My parents celebrated their anniversary. I was lucky, because right after, we would go on tour to support the international promotion of <em>Portrait of a woman on fire</em> and I couldn't miss it. But there was something else I wanted to do: I wanted to tell my parents that I had split with Simon and was now dating someone else. I wasn't sure if I would reveal whom.</p><p>Adèle knew nothing. She had things to do anyway. I didn't invite her, of course. We had just started dating. But I wanted so badly that our love was real, I needed to tell it, so plan B was, after everyone had drunk and the party got going, I'd tell them that Adèle Haenel and I were dating.</p><p>- Adèle Haenel?</p><p>My father asked.</p><p>They all looked at me.</p><p>- What kind of name is that?</p><p>- Adèle Haenel, I repeated. The actress I did <em>Portrait with</em> .</p><p>- And Simon? Said my mother, who had not just learned that Simon was old water.</p><p>After a few awkward seconds, my father called the service to ask for more wine and everyone took the opportunity to divert attention to another matter. People were a little drunk, but not enough to talk about my new life. It was the conclusion I drew.</p><p>I was disappointed that they didn't want to know anything. At least in public. Later, my mother went to look for me in the kitchen.</p><p>- Can't you wait for your father and I to celebrate our anniversary with ease? What kind of person are you?</p><p>- One person, I replied. What is wrong with what I have said?</p><p>- My God, daughter, and your marriage? Don't you care about anything?</p><p>- Marriages end.</p><p>- Not all marriages end, some, like ours, last, she said.</p><p>I shook my head. I was drunk, and so was she, and I just wanted to finish the party as soon as possible.</p><p>She asked:</p><p>- Have you become a lesbian?</p><p>And I answered yes, to put it vulgarly, because I did not expect to go into the matter in depth. She raised an eyebrow. She didn't say anything else.</p><p>I had watered down the party, but it was my intention since I started pouring wine into the glass without stopping. My little sister came to ask me for more details as soon as we were alone. My eyes sparkled talking about Adèle.</p><p>- And what do you plan to do?</p><p>- Divorce me.</p><p>- And how is it?</p><p>- Adele?</p><p>- Yeah.</p><p>- She is so beautiful...</p><p>- You are drooling. What is it like to do it with a woman?</p><p>- I only know how it is to do it with Adèle, I replied offended.</p><p>"A woman", as if Adèle was worth for any other.</p><p>My sister also asked me if we were living together, if we were going to get married, if she wanted to have children.</p><p>- What are you going to do? Are you not going to have children or adopt them?</p><p>- I still don't know, I said, but I don't need to adopt them.</p><p>She was looking at me satisfied. She loved that I broke the rules. The wine made us both laugh.</p><p> </p><p>I wanted to have a child. A child of Adèle. I began to think how I was going to tell her. I was already thirty years old, we were both thirty years old, and I felt it was time. Maybe in a couple of years, but fertilization would have to start soon, the longer we delayed it, the harder it would be to get pregnant, and the more money the whole process would entail. I could imagine her face and what she would say: "a son, a dog, a house and a car". She thought all those things were the rules of patriarchy that we didn't have to obey. We could live life differently, we just needed imagination. So I could expect her to look me up and down disappointed. I don't know if she would say it to my face, so as not to hurt me, but she would think it to herself, which was even sadder.</p><p>- I want a girl, with your eyes, your hair, your nose, your mouth, I would say.</p><p>But she would try to get it out of my head.</p><p>When the effect of the wine passed, I felt desolate. I really was alone. The world I had lived in until now was no longer worth me. The energy she had spent on past goals was lost, since the goals were wrong. Although I had learned the theory, I still felt like a weirdo in the new world of Adèle and the daunting task of convincing her to have a child and not looking stupid before her eyes. It could even be that she ended up despising me for having such conventional interests. Again "Blue is the Warmest Colour" came to my mind: Emma began to move away from Adèle because she seemed her vulgar and Adèle took refuge in a fellow with whom she barely covered the emptiness that distressed her.</p><p> </p><p>Adèle was not at home.</p><p>I turned on the light, left the keys on the nightstand, shuffled forward to the kitchen. A phrase was repeated in my head: "I am vulgar, I am so vulgar."</p><p>Why wasn't Adèle at home? It was three o'clock. I stared around, trying to remember if she had told me I'd be back late. I looked for a note. Nothing.</p><p>I lay down on the sofa and fell asleep.</p><p>In the morning, Adèle had not yet arrived. I looked at the mobile: no message. I went to the bathroom holding onto the furniture and got into the shower.</p><p>- Adèle, I want a daughter, I murmured, while the cold water ran down my chest and face.</p><p>At eleven in the morning my head still hurt, but I picked up the cell phone:</p><p>- Adele?</p><p>- Yeah?</p><p>-…</p><p>- Yes, Noé? I go home. I'm almost there.</p><p>When she opened the door, I was still holding the phone.</p><p>She came over and kissed me.</p><p>- You look horrible! She exclaimed smiling.</p><p>- Where you come from?</p><p>She looked at me for a moment, surely weighing the way I was inquiring.</p><p>- Went shopping. I arrived at night and you were sleeping on the sofa.</p><p>She dropped the bags on the floor of the kitchen.</p><p>And then she shot me a top-down look.</p><p>- I'm not the one who came home with that look.</p><p>I sat down on the couch.</p><p>- I want to have a child of yours, I said.</p><p>She opened her eyes wide.</p><p>- What?</p><p>- I want us to have a girl.</p><p>- Okay. I heard it the first time.</p><p>She bent down before me and brushed my hair from my face.</p><p>- You have to get some sleep, my love.</p><p>- I've already slept.</p><p>Anyway I lay down on the couch because my head was spinning.</p><p>- Tell me what you think of that.</p><p>- That we have a child?</p><p>I wanted to know now: if she hated me and it seemed vulgar, I had to find out now. I was not a feminist, I was a newcomer, now, at the age of thirty, I was beginning to learn that there was something like feminism and that my husband, to give just one example, had used me as a sexual lure to sell his shitty movies.</p><p>I was lying on the sofa, face up, the ceiling was spinning.</p><p>Adèle brought water:</p><p>- Here, drink it. Have you come so bad from your parents' party?</p><p>I looked at her askance: she had no idea.</p><p>- I told them I was dating you.</p><p>I saw the surprise in her eyes.</p><p>- And what did they say?</p><p>- They don't want to know anything.</p><p>- Oh my love.</p><p>She hugged me.</p><p>- Adèle, seriously, I want to have children, our daughter.</p><p>I must have looked like a helpless and disoriented girl. She closed her eyelids and covered my mouth with her hand.</p><p>- Now we are not going to talk about this.</p><p>- Where did you go last night?</p><p>- We have gone to Le Perchoir.</p><p>- With whom?</p><p>- With Céline. And more people. But I know you want to hear that name.</p><p>I covered my face with my arm and started crying.</p><p>- Oh, no, no, honey. What's happening to you?</p>
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<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Chapter 15</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p><p>It was late to cook. The bags were still on the kitchen floor, waiting, like our lives. Adèle sat down on the balcony to smoke and began to speak gazing into the horizon as if I wasn't there.</p><p>- When I was a little girl I promised myself that I would not be like my mother. She was a strong woman, but she was caught in the role of mother and did not see beyond, and she did not have time for herself, to think about what she wanted to do with her life. When I thought about her, I always imagined her wanting to leave us: my father and us, and start a new life. But she never did it.</p><p>- Wasn't she happy?</p><p>Adèle shook her head.</p><p>- I'd bet not. Neither do I.</p><p> </p><p>On the 22nd we went to the Francophonie Film Festival and they interviewed us. As always, I remained silent most of the time, while they repeated their speech on <em>Portrait</em> . It is not that I did not agree, but I felt that I was far behind them, that I could not express in my own words anything new about cinema, politics, feminism ... When I feel like this, I close in on myself. I started to notice how each of them took their turn. When one finished a sentence, the other agreed and sometimes it seemed to me that they would applaud.</p><p>- Again we have to hear that cinema is too politicized, said Adèle.</p><p>- If we make "art" without politics we are lost.</p><p>- To depoliticize the gaze is to politicize it in favor of the oppressors.</p><p>- Can culture change the world? It is like saying: "Can culture change culture?" Of course.</p><p>- Cinema is like any other industry, it reproduces the system. <em>Portrait</em> tries to produce something new to change things.</p><p>They were perfectly synchronized. Then they looked at me. I must have been skeptical.</p><p>- Why not, Noémie?</p><p>I was a little startled and smiled, the journalist waited a moment to see if I added anything, but luckily he came back with them and they forgot about me. I looked at the journalist, he was surely wondering how from a film about love we had come to art and politics. He was completely lost and wasn't asking the right questions, I identified with him. I could only think of one thing: how we were going to solve all this. What I wanted, what she wanted, our life together ... How we were going to get to fit together, that we were so different.</p><p> </p><p>At night we had dinner at the Atelier, in Angouleme and they continued the conversation, now they were talking about the article that the Mediapart journalist was writing and that would be out in November.</p><p>I dropped the napkin on the table and went to the bathroom.</p><p>I looked at myself in the mirror, turned on the tap, and soaked my neck and face with cold water. It was like I was about to explode and was trying to avoid it. Why did I have the feeling that I couldn't get into the conversation, that I was an intruder? I imagined that if I gave my opinion, they would look at me like a small child who wants to enter the conversation of their parents, they would realize that I had nothing interesting to say about anything, except to repeat what they said.</p><p>When I returned to the table, they were laughing at some joke.</p><p>- Are you okay? Asked Adèle.</p><p>- Yeah.</p><p>Obviously not.</p><p>I looked at Adèle and she looked at me. We exchanged a look of those who say it all.</p><p>After half an hour, when the food was finally brought to us and we began to eat, Adèle exclaimed.</p><p>- Please, where have you learned those manners?</p><p>- What?</p><p>I realized that she had picked up her fork trying to imitate me. It was not the first time that she drew attention to how delicate I was, but this time Céline was in front and it seemed that this show was directed at her.</p><p>I looked at her embarrassed and also looked at Céline, who didn't know what to say. I put the fork on the table and got up.</p><p>I didn't say anything, I couldn't, because I was about to cry. I headed to the exit.</p><p>What if I went straight home? Or better, what if it didn't appear anymore? As soon as I went out the door I saw a taxi from which a couple got out. Without thinking twice, I climbed into the back. On the mobile screen I saw her calls, but I wasn't going to pick it up. I started to think about my revenge: go and let her find me. Hiding in a friend's apartment. That she missed me, that she thought of me as the most important thing in her life, that she stopped talking to Céline as if there were only the two of them. I wanted to make her suffer and understand that she could not treat me like this. Along the way I called a friend. That night I would stay in her apartment.</p><p>I had a theory about what was happening between the two: she hated my “femininity”, she hated my passivity, she hated that I didn't know what to do with my hands, that I never held things tightly or knew how to play ping pong, that I didn't I would talk elbows with the journalists, that I would be scared by everything and that I would remain silent with nothing to say during dinner. That I wanted a dog and a house and a child. And she hated that I am bisexual. That was what she hated most about me.</p><p>Why was she with me? I was wondering. And the only answer I could think of was that with me she had sex that she could no longer have with her perfect Céline.</p><p>My friend opened the door and looked me up and down.</p><p>- But what do you look like? It looks like you came from the war.</p><p>We kissed twice. I took off my coat.</p><p>- And that hair?</p><p>- I've been shooting a movie ...</p><p>I didn't want to talk about the subject of my new movie. I just wanted to get into bed.</p><p>- We haven't seen each other for so long, you look like someone else!</p><p>I smiled shyly.</p><p>- You are still as shy as ever.</p><p>My friend stroked my cheek because I must have looked very bad.</p><p>- Have you fought with Simon?</p><p>I shook my head.</p><p>- And what happened?</p><p>- I'm dating Adèle Haenel.</p><p>- Adèle Haenel the actress?</p><p>- Yeah.</p><p>- Since when?</p><p>- We met on the set and fell in love with her, and now we are living together.</p><p>- Wow, holy cow, I had no idea. What a life you have!</p><p>She made me laugh.</p><p>- Good thing you laugh. Do you want to have dinner?</p><p>- No, thanks, I am not hungry.</p><p>- Well, I was about to snack on something. You join?</p><p>- I do not want to interrupt...</p><p>- Not at all.</p><p>She lived alone. She had just broken up with her boyfriend. She was working and earning money, when she was not in the gym. While she was making the salad, I would open the bottle of wine. I looked at her: she is thirty years old and lives alone. What does she expect from her life? Was she dating someone?</p><p>- Now I don't have a boyfriend, she said, as if reading my thoughts.</p><p>- And how are you doing? I asked her.</p><p>- Great. Maybe, in a year I will be crying around the corners, but now I go out a lot, I enjoy my friends. There is no need to burden yourself with raising a family. We live in the 21st century.</p><p>She turned around and looked at me again fascinated:</p><p>- My God, Noémie, how much you have changed. What role do you have in that movie?</p><p>- I'm a man.</p><p>- Ha! Really?</p><p>I smiled.</p><p>- I'm looking forward to seeing her ... And also the one you shot last year in Brittany. I saw you in Cannes on TV. When will it come out?</p><p>- In September.</p><p>- I would love to be you. Sure you enjoy every second.</p><p>I sighed.</p><p>- What I don't understand is how you can put yourself in front of a camera and play a role, being so shy. I remember when we were in high school. You remember? The boys were crazy about you, but you were such an introverted person that you hardly benefited from your beauty. You lived in your world. How we hated you! In a good way, don't believe it.</p><p>We dined on their terrace. She had a beautiful penthouse in the center of Paris. It was not in vain that she dedicated herself to finances.</p><p>- And where is your girlfriend now? Did you argued?</p><p>- I'm going through a crisis.</p><p>I was silent looking for the words.</p><p>- I see, she said. Is it a crisis with your sexual identity?</p><p>I smiled.</p><p>- I don't really know where to start, I don't want to bore you either.</p><p>- Come on, Noémie, you and your shyness.</p>
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<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Chapter 16</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p><p>Marie was cheerful and talkative as she set the table. I thought it was true that she is happy, even though she lived alone. That she was right not to hurry to start a family. I was happy for her and I wondered what I could do to have that attitude, not to be distressed all the time.</p><p>She told me that she had had some trouble with men after her boyfriend, but had never hooked up with a woman.</p><p>- Don't think I'm not curious.</p><p>And she told me that her family see her as a black sheep, even though she had that flat in the center and made a lot of money.</p><p>- People always expect more from you, Noémie.</p><p>She said it with regret.</p><p>- My parents will only be satisfied when I marry, have children and depend on a man. Can you believe it? I suppose that they believe that this life that I lead is a student life and that the true goal of a woman is other and that I, for some reason that they do not understand, but that surely is related to my personality, I cannot “settle down” ... The last family reunion was a horror. I felt out of place. It is not that they say something that makes me feel bad, it is that everyone else is married and has children and, when they look at me, they look at me with sorrow without being able to avoid it. It is as if they thought: this daughter of mine must have some defect.</p><p>After telling me all that, we began to have dinner in silence. I noticed that now she wanted to give me room to speak. So finally, I launched:</p><p>- Adèle has an ex who is very special to her. They get along very well, they talk about everything ... They say that it is as if they had created their own language, a language that only they understand.</p><p>I paused, to let Marie take it in.</p><p>She nodded.</p><p>- And I sit outside. I can't participate when they speak, I don't know what to say, because they are always one step ahead of me. And they don't ask me anything either. When I'm with them, I feel like I'm a spectator.</p><p>She listened to me while she chewed her salad and I made those breaks, I was unable to speak for a long time without making them, to make sure I don't bore her.</p><p>- And Adèle and her ex-girlfriend meet a lot? She asked me.</p><p>- Quite. They get along very well, they like each other, intellectually I mean. They are like soul mates. They were together for ten years, I think, and Adèle was very young when they started.</p><p>Marie looked at me for a few seconds, analyzing me.</p><p>- And you are jealous of that past they had together, that they knew each other when Adèle was so young ...</p><p>I was surprised. I did not think about it like that.</p><p>- But they are still together. Adèle says that they love each other and that it's not fair that I try to get in the middle.</p><p>My friend raised an eyebrow. It was definitely too much information at one time.</p><p>- And what kind of relationship do you have with Adèle?</p><p>I thought twice, before defining it.</p><p>- Sexual, basically.</p><p>- Wow, she exclaimed.</p><p>- Not, seriously. I feel like this, as if I were her lover and the other her wife.</p><p>- But you have just started ... And she with "her wife" gets along and they like to talk, what is wrong? Be glad they only want to talk.</p><p>- Well, I want to be more than just a girlfriend.</p><p>- And Adèle doesn't tell you what she wants?</p><p>- No. Well, she seems happy like this, as we are now.</p><p>Marie shrugged her shoulders.</p><p>- That is good.</p><p>- Yes, it is good that she is happy, but I think she doesn't want anything else. That we will live as girlfriends or lovers forever and that her true love is Céline.</p><p>There was an awkward silence. I fell silent and waited for her to react.</p><p>- And did you tell her that you want something more?</p><p>- Yes. I told her I want a child.</p><p>My friend raised her eyebrows, this time both.</p><p>- I know I seem to be going very fast, but I have never been more sure of this.</p><p>- Do you plan to have it you?</p><p>- Yes. The problem is that she doesn't want to.</p><p>- But...</p><p>- She doesn't even want to talk about it.</p><p>Marie leaned back in her chair. She had finished her little salad. I had hardly started.</p><p>- You should eat something. You look very skinny.</p><p>We thought for a moment, looking at the lights of the city. It was late, but not so late, there were still many people awake. She said:</p><p>- You know? My boyfriend did nothing but demand things of me. I got tired.</p><p>I looked her straight in the eye. She had beautiful honey-colored eyes.</p><p>- Do you think I demand a lot from her?</p><p>- It seems to me that everyone has their own rhythm and we have to respect it. Now you should take care of conquering her, not rushing her into the future.</p><p>- What about Céline? Does that seem normal to you?</p><p>She laughed and looked around.</p><p>- What is normal?</p><p>I stared at the tablecloth, the salad.</p><p>- You're so sweet ... I'm sure she's crazy about you. You just have to let her to know you, step by step.</p><p>I took the cell phone out of my pocket and stared at the screen.</p><p>- Twenty missed calls, I said.</p><p>- Wow! I leave you alone for you to answer.</p><p>She got up and picked up the dishes.</p><p>I looked at the phone in fear, unlocked the screen and put my thumb on her name. I stared at her name on the screen. I hadn't even had time to put a photo of her in my contacts, nor did I have any photos of us in the Gallery. What if everything vanishes without leaving even a single trace?</p><p> </p><p>- Hello, I said.</p><p>- Hello, said Adèle.</p><p>- I'm in a friends' house.</p><p>- Do you want me to come to pick you up?</p><p>I hesitate.</p><p>- You want?</p><p>- Yes, I want to, Noémie.</p><p>- Adèle is coming to get me, I said to Marie.</p><p>She turned around.</p><p>- Seriously? What a thrill! Am I going to meet her?</p><p>I wrinkled my nose.</p><p>- I guess it's better not to make her go up, too. Another day.</p><p>- Yeah right.</p><p>She looked at me with affection, it seemed that she wanted to hug me.</p><p>When Adèle arrived, Marie and I said goodbye and I thanked her. I went down in the elevator with my heart in my throat.</p><p>I saw her car waiting with the indicator on. I opened the door and looked at her. She tried to smile, but was sad. I didn't want to cry again, so I kept quiet, looking at the road, thinking of nothing and she looked at me from time to time.</p><p>- Do you hate me? She asked finally.</p><p>- Not.</p><p>- Are you going to forgive me?</p><p>I did not answer.</p><p>- I did not want to harm you. I thought you would laugh, but you're right: it wasn't funny.</p><p>Even though I was trying to play tough, my tears were running.</p><p>- Oh, Noé, she exclaimed.</p><p>In the elevator she gave me a handkerchief. We didn't touch or say anything to each other until we entered her apartment.</p><p>The first thing I did when I entered the house was to sit on the sofa, with my coat on. When I need to talk, I have to sit down first, I don't know why.</p><p>- Listen to me, I said.</p><p>She sat at the table in front of me.</p><p>- I love you and I need to hear that you love me, from time to time.</p><p>I waited.</p><p>She looked down. There was a long silence, too long.</p><p>- Noé, she said, I need to say those words without pressure, when they come out, not because you ask me to. I need you to wait a little because I see that I go slower than you. I want to be with you, but you already know that. And I want us to talk, to tell me about you, to tell me what you are thinking, but don't ask me for a child now. We have just started. And I want you to forget about Céline, not to compare yourself to her all the time. I don't, I assure you. But I don't want to have to choose between you and Céline every second.</p>
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<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Chapter 17</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>- You don't love me?</p><p>She sighed.</p><p>- I have not said that. What I'm saying is that you're in a hurry and you push me, and I don't like it, I don't feel real.</p><p>I was crying and couldn't stop. She took my hands off my face and I put them back.</p><p>- Noémie, listen to me, stop crying.</p><p>She hugged me, because it was impossible to talk to me.</p><p>- If I tell you that I love you, your next question will be: do you love me more than Céline?</p><p>I got up from the couch, wiping tears on my jacket sleeve.</p><p>- And you want to have a child to have more of me than Céline had.</p><p>I went to the kitchen and turned on the tap. I didn't want to hear it. I took a glass and put it under the stream of water, but it filled up and I did not turn off.</p><p>She came after me. She turned off the tap, took the glass of water from my hand, took off my jacket.</p><p>- When you feel insecure you leave your coat on and when you want to talk you sit down.</p><p>I looked at her.</p><p>- You know everything, I replied.</p><p>- Drink the water, she said.</p><p>I drank it in one gulp. I just wanted to die.</p><p>She hugged me tight and stroked my hair, kissed my neck. We stood like that for a while, holding each other, standing in the kitchen.</p><p>- I like the way you smell, she said softly.</p><p>I felt her lips on my neck and her hands on my back. When we were like this, the fear disappeared and there was nothing else, just her and me.</p><p>- Let's go to bed, my love.</p><p>- I'm going to sleep on the sofa.</p><p>- Okay, well, we sleep on the sofa.</p><p> </p><p>The next day, from the sofa, I heard her preparing breakfast. I went to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror.</p><p>- Ufff.</p><p>I got into the shower and rested my forehead on the tiles, with no intention of moving. Listening to the sound of the water, feeling it go down my back and my buttocks, and my legs. Again I had an anxiety attack and tried to control it by concentrating on the water.</p><p>She entered the bathroom and stared at me, I turned my face to the wall. She got undressed and went into the shower with me and started stroking me, but I grabbed her wrist. I had to do something drastic, I felt that if I didn't, I was going to faint. I turned and slapped her. She looked at me without understanding anything. Then I brought her over to me and bit her mouth. We kissed, we bit each other and we made love there, in the shower, and my anguish went down the drain with the water.</p><p>Céline (always Céline) called when we were having breakfast.</p><p>- Seriously? When?</p><p>I could hear what they were saying.</p><p>- Great.</p><p>I bit into the toast without blinking. She said goodbye to Céline and looked at me with laughing eyes.</p><p>- Ping pong championship and barbecue. How does that sound to you?</p><p>- With whom.</p><p>- With the <em>Portrait</em> team .</p><p>- Everybody?</p><p>- No, most of them.</p><p>I smiled.</p><p>- Do you want to learn to play ping pong?</p><p>- If I play on your team, you will lose.</p><p>- I do not care.</p><p>It seemed like we were talking about more than ping pong.</p><p>- The last time we bowled ...</p><p>- Who remembers?</p><p>- When it is going to be?</p><p>- All weekend. We stayed at Jean-Baptiste's house.</p><p>She was happy and I didn't want to spoil it, but the thought of spending the weekend with Céline gaves me a stomachache.</p><p>- And where he lives?</p><p>- In District XII, he has a huge house with a garden.</p><p>On Friday at noon we went to Austerlitz by bicycle, along the Seine. We cross to the other side through the Pont de Bercy and turn right before the Boulevard. It was a beautiful day. I was behind Adèle, it was impossible to lose sight of her because her bicycle was golden. She loved that bike, an old model she had had for at least twelve years. The sun made it glow, just like her hair. We were almost there. I saw Jean-Baptiste's house appear among tall trees. It had a stately style, with a fence and a garden. We get off as we cross the gate. We did not have to call, as the guests were already arriving.</p><p>- Where did he get this house from? I asked Adèle in surprise.</p><p>- He is one of those people who does not need to work for money.</p><p>We leave the bikes in the parking lot. Other guests had gotten there by subway, because it was impossible to park around. We surround the house. You could hear the sound of the voices in the back, in the garden, I was concentrating on distinguishing Céline's voice, I couldn't help it.</p><p>There they were. It was a good group, I counted ten people, almost all from the technical team.</p><p>- But what time are these to arrive? Exclaimed Bénédicte.</p><p>Céline hugged Adèle, then gave me two kisses.</p><p>- Jean-Baptiste has prepared a great program for the weekend.</p><p>I smiled. He was going to play for us, we were going to barbecue, we were going to play a team ping pong championship, we were going to talk about so many things ... I looked at Jean-Baptiste, who was deep in conversation. Some guests came to meet us. It will be a perfect weekend, I thought, because I was trying to convince myself of it.</p><p>Valérie Deloof approached me smiling.</p><p>- Dear dear...</p><p>We haven't seen each other in a long time.</p><p>- How are you? Did they tell me that you've been shooting a movie in the role of a transsexual boy? Interesting...</p><p>We all kept up to date with what had happened in our lives since last year.</p><p>- You are beautiful, Valérie told me.</p><p>- Thanks you too.</p><p>I felt an arm around my waist. It was Adèle. Suddenly, I felt happy, just because of that brief gesture, and I wanted her to keep hugging me like that all weekend because when she did, I felt safe and brave, but when she walked away from me, I felt lost, as if I didn't know anyone and it made no sense for me to be there.</p><p>Jean-Baptiste's wife approached me.</p><p>- We don't know each other, she said.</p><p>She must have been forty, had long hair loose, and was not dyed. I liked her appearance, she seemed sure of herself. She took my travel bag, where I had put some clothes.</p><p>- Come with me.</p><p>We enter the cool, high-ceilinged house.</p><p>- Later I'll show you around the house, okay? Now we are in the kitchen preparing food. Do you like Turkish food?</p><p>- I love it, I replied.</p><p>She led me to a loft that had been set up as a guest room. Judith put my bag down on the floor while I looked around. Sunlight came in through a little window directly above the bed, in the distance one could see the roofs of the city. It was a very romantic little room. I went downstairs behind her and went to the kitchen.</p><p>The movement had begun in the kitchen. In a corner I could see Céline talking to Adèle while they were taking trays out of the fridge, but I paid attention to Judith.</p><p>- Can you make the salad?</p><p>- Yeah, right.</p><p>I washed my hands in the sink and looked askance at where they were. Then I started washing the lettuce.</p><p>- What do you want to drink ?, Judith said to me.</p><p>I saw that Adèle's expression had changed, she had suddenly become serious.</p><p>- Wine?</p><p>- Yes, wine is fine.</p><p>Adèle went out into the garden and Céline was left with a tray in her hand, not knowing what to do for a moment. Thinking</p><p>I started cutting the lettuce. From the garden came music from a synthesizer. Judith offered me the glass of white wine.</p><p>- Chin chin, she said.</p><p>I took the glass with my wet hand and drank. Céline approached me.</p><p>- How are you?</p><p>- Great, I said, staring at her. And you?</p><p>I saw in her eyes that she was startled for a second.</p><p>- Me too. Preparing for the tour. Are you ready?</p><p>I smiled forcibly.</p><p>- We are going to have a great time, you'll see.</p><p>I wanted to ask: what did you say to Adèle?</p><p>- Have you ever been in New York, in Los Angeles ...?</p><p>I shook my head.</p><p>- We are going to take advantage of the trip to do some tourism.</p><p>I struggled to appear friendly and relaxed, but I could only think that the woman in front of me was the love of her life.</p>
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<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Chapter 18</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>During the meal we all talk about <em>Portrait</em>. Claire says she was concerned that there was not enough light to film some scenes.</p><p>- Do you regret any shot?</p><p>- Well, now I see the movie and I think: my God, here I should have risked less, this and that. But it always happens to me. I am a perfectionist.</p><p>- It was a challenge.</p><p>- Yes, it was definitely a challenge in every way. I also liked the idea of shooting a movie that contained that program, right? That idea of changing art and ultimately changing the world.</p><p>- Which scene was the most difficult?</p><p>The one who asks is me. Everyone look at me.</p><p>- Uff, there were several that seemed impossible to solve, but since you ask me: your kiss in front of the fireplace. How are you supposed to film that? Just to begin with, the fire is behind you and is the only important light in the room.</p><p>Adèle has her hand on my thigh and I squeeze it.</p><p>Now Céline gets up and looks at Jean-Baptiste.</p><p>- Well, everyone knows why we met. Obviously, we don't need any special reason to get together and have a good time, but it is that these days have been fourteen years no less since Jean-Baptiste and I started doing things together. And...</p><p>Dramatic pause followed by laughter and applause.</p><p>- And I brought something special.</p><p>Céline reaches into her pocket and pulls out a USB stick.</p><p>They all exaggerate their amazement.</p><p>- Oooooh!</p><p>- No, seriously, what is here has cost me days of editing. And I want us to see it together after coffee.</p><p>Looks at Jean-Baptiste:</p><p>- They are pieces of film and photos of our life together, Jean-Baptiste.</p><p>And then, addressing the rest:</p><p>- Don't worry that we won't need days to see it, it's only an hour. I don't know how I managed to reduce so many years in one hour, but they are requirements of the script.</p><p>Applause.</p><p>I look at Adèle who seems focused on looking at her own hands. I interpret it as being nervous and I wonder why.</p><p>We finish eating and continue drinking for another hour. Now Céline is telling that she is not going to reveal what decision she would have made, the lover's decision or that of the poet.</p><p>- Come on, Céline, tell us.</p><p>She flatly refuses, looks at Adèle, smiles at her and winks at her. She's drunk, I think.</p><p>- And you, Jean-Baptiste? Where do you play next? I really want to hear you.</p><p>The one who speaks is Adèle.</p><p>- Well, I'm going to perform at Nuits Fauves. Which is right the opposite shore. Next Saturday.</p><p>- Great, well, I'm going to go listen to you.</p><p>- I'll get you some tickets.</p><p>- Great!</p><p>Adèle looks at me.</p><p>- You feel like?</p><p>I smile.</p><p>- Of course.</p><p>Then we all go inside for the screening. Some sit on sofas, others on chairs, Adèle and I on the floor. She hugs one of my legs and leans her head on my knee.</p><p>- Are you sleepy? I ask her. And I stroke her hair.</p><p>Does not answer. Anyway, there is a huge din in the room.</p><p>The projection begins. Céline and Jean-Baptiste are there when they studied at La Fémis, the film school. Fourteen or fifteen years ago. Oh my God, they are so young. They are together in front of the fence.</p><p>- It's a good photo to start with, says Céline, who is about to tell us the anecdotes behind the images.</p><p>Now there is a video where Adèle appears. Seeing her, my heart skips a beat. It's that young girl with the long hair, who is next to them. Now she and Céline are holding hands, pretending to be fighting. I estimate that she must be eighteen years old. I am in shock. She seems much younger than Céline. In other images they walk arm in arm. I close my eyes for a moment.</p><p>As the projection passes, Adèle grows, she becomes a woman before my eyes. Always with Céline in the great events that mark their life. And yet another surprise awaits me, a surprise that should have awaited me yet. In the middle of the video, some sequences of “the wedding” that they celebrated appear. It was a symbolic wedding and Jean-Baptiste and half of those of us sitting in the room also attended the ceremony. Adèle is dressed in lilac. She's beautiful. I notice that she moves when those images pass, she is uncomfortable, I do not know if it is because she regrets that I have to see her wonderful life with Céline or because she is suffering to remember her finished love story.</p><p>I still have my glass of wine in my hand, I look at it and take the last drink. I want more. I get up and move Adèle, and I feel immense pleasure leaving her without the support of my leg. I go out into the garden, grab a bottle by the neck, and take it out of the bucket where there is no more ice because it has melted. It's still cold, I tell myself, and I pour myself more wine.</p><p>- Noémie.</p><p>I turn around. It is Adèle.</p><p>- Don't drink anymore.</p><p>- You're not going to tell me how much I can drink.</p><p>- Don't drink anymore, please.</p><p>Céline comes to the door.</p><p>- We have stopped the video. Now comes <em>Portrait</em> and you come out, Noémie.</p><p>I look at her without believing it. She is not stupid, she notices that something happens and she returns inside the house immediately. I look at Adèle.</p><p>- Is this on purpose?</p><p>- What? Is nothing. It is nothing against you. It is our past, just that. </p><p>But I'm not going to put on a show. We go back inside and see the end of the video. Jean-Baptiste and Arthur composed the soundtrack for our movie. Jean-Baptiste explains that he was inspired by popular music from Brittany and Ligeti's Requiem.</p><p>- 2001 Space Odyssey. The chorus of voices achieves those almost extraterrestrial sounds, like a pulse that accelerates, a passion that grows ... It is a magical sensation and that is what we were looking for for the film. The magical effect around the campfire and the idea of the witches. All that.</p><p>- And the lyrics?</p><p>- "Et amplius non oriri et parva videntur esse, qui neque volare possit", says Adèle.</p><p>"The higher you rise, the smaller you seem to those who cannot fly." I think it's a sad movie, but I'm not saying it because it's supposed to have a happy ending. Céline has explained it thousands of times: "loving does not mean possessing, quite the contrary". It sounds great, but I could not see that Adèle is leaving my life and, instead of fighting for her, say goodbye with a smile on my lips. It breaks my heart.</p><p>The show ends. Everyone applaud. It's been almost a year since we shot <em>Portrait</em> and in October we won't be able to meet again<em>,</em> so this is officially our anniversary party. What Adèle had described as “ping pong and barbecue championship”. I am intrigued if she knew that Céline was going to bring this video. </p><p>We toast. Céline and Jean-Baptiste hug each other. We are all invaded by the bitter experience of the transience of time and, in addition, I am ashamed to be the newcomer, the one who hardly appears in that video, but has taken the heart of Adèle, the love of Céline. The bad guy.</p><p>After the screening, we return to the garden and continue with the wine. Goodness. I just want to get drunk. I see the teams for the ping pong championship form and run away. Adèle looks for me, but I sit next to Judith to talk. I am not a great conversationalist, but wine helps me.</p><p>- Adèle is very competitive, I tell Judith.</p><p>- Oh yeah?</p><p>- Yes. Look, she's looking for teammates and she's trying to sign me, but I don't want her to lose because of me.</p><p>- But it's about having fun, says Judith.</p><p>- No, she wants to win.</p><p>Judith looks at me amused. She is watching the childish tantrum of a thirty-year-old woman.</p><p>- And you are not competitive?</p><p>- Not.</p><p>It is a lie, I am willing to split my face for her.</p><p>- But you've made all those risky movies ...</p><p>I looked at her eyes. I'm about to ask her, "Do you think I'm good?" But it would be pathetic.</p><p>- I saw Curiosa.</p><p>I smile embarrassed.</p><p>- And I also saw ... What's its name? That TV5Monde serie.</p><p>I can't help but laugh.</p><p>- Seriously, you never repeat role, you always play someone completely different: a writer crazy about sex, a silly girl, an eighteenth-century painter, a woman who falls in love with a machine, and now a transsexual boy. I'm waiting for them to come to the cinema to see them.</p><p>That is what I need, that they value me, I think. I am so grateful to this woman that I would kiss her on the mouth, but I'm not that drunk yet.</p><p>Suddenly, Adèle is in front of us and she blocks the sun.</p><p>- You are not going to play?</p>
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<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Chapter 19</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>But Arthur Simonini comes up behind her and holds out his hand. He brings two shovels.</p><p>- No, seriously, I don't know how to play.</p><p>- Well, I teach you, he says.</p><p>I take his hand and he leads me to the side, next to a miniature ping pong table, which must belong to the son of Joan-Baptiste and Judith.</p><p>- Sit down, says Arthur.</p><p>He insists.</p><p>- You're going to see how much fun.</p><p>I look at Adèle, who does not move from where she is and does not react.</p><p>I sit on the grass on one side of the table and he on the other side.</p><p>- You'll see. There's no need to move around a lot, okay? Just the arm. And you have to throw the ball here. You focus on one point and direct it there. At first it is difficult to calculate the force with which you have to give it, but soon you get used to it.</p><p>I laugh at the situation. Adèle with her mouth open looking at us and Arthur and I sitting on the grass at this toy table.</p><p>- It is important that you focus.</p><p>His arm is extended and he is about to release the ball and start the game.</p><p>- Okay.</p><p>We start playing. I try to throw the ball in an imaginary spot on the table, but at first it doesn't work out, we laugh a lot. I am thinking of Adèle. Is she still standing there or has she returned to the others? She is angry, sure, and jealous. But I'm not going to look, I don't want to seem worried about her, about what she thinks or feels. Oh my God, how much am I enjoying my spontaneous revenge.</p><p>Arthur and I are still at the toy table for a while. We laugh more and more. I'm not bad at ping pong, I think. It no longer costs me that much and I have better aim every time.</p><p>Jean-Baptiste has put on music, so we did not hear Adèle's group, nor they us, but if Adèle looked this way, she would see that we are having fun. After a good while of training, Arthur says:</p><p>- Well, I think you're ready. We form a good team.</p><p>We get up and go with the others.</p><p>- We want to play, he says.</p><p>I am perfectly aware that Arthur has taken the initiative and speaks for me, but I do not care, I let him. I want to make Adèle suffer and feel the same way I feel when I see those images on the screen: the two of them holding hands, the two of them arm in arm, they marrying, they so close.</p><p>We play. And of course we lose, but I'm finally laughing and I don't care about anything anymore, I'm happy because I'm winning, because I see Adèle's expression: she's bewildered, she's hurt, she wants to grab my arm and get me out of there and scold me, and send Arthur to hell.</p><p>When the championship ends, I feel happy and ready to face a new challenge, because I know how to play my cards.</p><p> </p><p>In the evening, we also have dinner in the garden and then a live concert awaits us. I look around me, how we are distributed at the tables, with whom everyone talks, who laughs, who is discussing a serious topic. I just observe. I am in a group with Arthur, and Adèle is at the other side, in another group. Arthur looks at me, wants to strike up a conversation with me alone, and searches for the moment, asks me which movies I've been shooting lately. I answer him.</p><p>- A transsexual boy?, He exclaims.</p><p>- Yeah.</p><p>- And has it been difficult? I mean ... I can't imagine what are the challenges of playing a character so far from you ...</p><p>- It's not that far away.</p><p>- Not?</p><p>That answer was not expected. I can see in his eyes that he is now asking himself many questions.</p><p>- I mean, in the end, we are all alike. No? We all have similar problems and discover new and unthinkable things about ourselves.</p><p>- Wow! It sounds incredibly exciting to go into acting.</p><p>- And you? What are your projects?</p><p>- Well, my thing is music, which also has a lot of interpretation ...</p><p>I see that he analyzes my face, he is distracted.</p><p>- From this distance, he says, you are prettier still.</p><p>That I did not expect. I raise my eyebrows. I do not know what to say.</p><p>- Sorry, he says. I do not want to bother you.</p><p>- Do not worry.</p><p>Really, I do not know what to say.</p><p>- Can I ask?</p><p>- Yeah?</p><p>- Do you have a couple?</p><p>- Yes.</p><p>- Ah, forgive me, I didn't want ...</p><p>He smiles disappointed. I keep smiling, not knowing what to say.</p><p>- Sorry to interrupt, says Adèle. Can we talk for a moment?</p><p>- Yeah, right.</p><p>I get up. We leave Arthur with the word in his mouth and go inside.</p><p>I'm going after her. I do not know what to expect. What to say or do. If she is very angry or if she has the right to be. Now we are in the kitchen. The kitchen overlooks the garden and actually from there everyone can see if we start to argue. But she doesn't care and I don't care.</p><p>Adèle looks at me questioningly, but doesn't ask any questions. She just has her arms crossed and she's looking at me like that, she's not going to say anything, but she demands that I say something. I don't know what she wants me to say, but I'm not going to take the first step, I want her to do it. If you want to find out what exactly I'm doing with Arthur all afternoon, ask me, and if you want me to stop flirting with Arthur, ask me. I'm sick of always asking for things.</p><p>- Do you want to make me jealous?</p><p>I look her straight in the eye. Those blue-green eyes that are now stone-gray. But I am not going to fall into the trap, I am not going to say yes, what I want is for you to pay more attention to me, to hug me and kiss me in front of everyone and stop behaving as if we were just friends. I want you to treat me in a special way, because I'm special to you, right? I'm not really asking for too much.</p><p>I have told her all that with my eyes, I do not intend to bare my heart, as always, because I want her to collapse and beg me to say "I love you".</p><p>- Answer, she says.</p><p>I turn around ready to leave.</p><p>- Noémie, stop flirting with him.</p><p>I stop at the door.</p><p>- I'm not flirting with him, he's flirting with me.</p><p>- Well, tell him we're together.</p><p>- I just told him.</p><p>We were silent for a moment. She continues with that questioning and fierce look. I still have my poker face.</p><p>- Anything else? Do you want something else? I ask her with irony, with anger.</p><p>- Come here.</p><p>I go where she is, but keep her arms crossed.</p><p>- Kiss me.</p><p>I kiss her, but keeps that look on. I kiss her again and this time, the look softens a little. I kiss her again and now the look is different, she no longer looks me in the eyes, but the mouth, the hair. So I kiss her again, and now the gaze is no longer because her eyes are closed. Finally, the arms are no longer crossed, I feel her hands on my back and on my neck. I feel her hot tongue inside my mouth.</p><p>- Well, she says, when she gets her air back. I think we can go back to the others.</p>
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<a name="section0020"><h2>20. Chapter 20</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p><p>The Jean-Baptiste concert awaited us. The guests turned their chairs towards the "stage", a corner of the garden under a banana that belonged to the park next door and slipped over the fence. He positioned himself behind his mixer. The first song he put on was <em>Portrait,</em> it was logical, but we weren't expecting it. He was mixing it with different rhythms and it was magical. I squeezed Adèle's hand and thought I was going to cry.</p><p>When the concert ended, groups formed again, some standing up smoked and others sat in the white chairs. Now only a few lamps scattered us around the garden. I approached Joan-Baptiste and asked him to put on something slow and romantic. Adèle chatted animatedly in a group of three. I went there with my heart leaping out of my chest.</p><p>- Adèle, shall we dance?</p><p>She had her glass in her hand and smiled like it was a joke. Then she raised her glass, by way of apology: I'm drinking. But I kept waiting. As the others were watching us, she must have asked himself: what's worse, leaving her standing in front of everyone or dancing with her? Finally, she agreed to dance. I put her hands on my shoulders and mine on her waist, and didn't look at her face because I knew she was angry.</p><p>Finally, the guests went to bed. Judith showed us the way to our room. When we entered, they had put a mattress on the floor and Céline was standing, unpacking her luggage. It changed my face, but I tried to hide. Why precisely her? I thought. But it was clear that she had asked for it. I went to the bathroom to change and when I came back, they were sitting talking in low voices. Now it was Adèle's turn to go to the bathroom, and Céline and I were left alone.</p><p>- Are you enjoying yourself? Asked Céline, strangely serious.</p><p>I was smiling, as always. That shy smile was my shield.</p><p>- A lot and you?</p><p>She nodded without taking her eyes off me. She seemed nervous.</p><p>- Sorry to have to sleep here, but there are not so many rooms.</p><p>I smiled again. There was an awkward silence. Long. Too long.</p><p>- I want to tell you something, she started to say.</p><p>But Adèle returned and then Céline went to the bathroom.</p><p>As soon as we were alone, Adèle crouched down in front of me and said in a low voice:</p><p>- Noé, please.</p><p>I looked at her without understanding.</p><p>She was silent, dared not say anything else. She sighed and climbed over me to go to her side of the bed.</p><p>- What does "Noé, please" mean.</p><p>- Nothing.</p><p>- No, tell me.</p><p>She looked at me sideways, impatiently. I imagined what it meant: don't screw up, don't be too affectionate and possessive in front of her ... But Céline came back right away and I was left without knowing. I spent a long time before falling asleep spinning while listening to their breathing.</p><p> </p><p>The next day, while queuing in the bathrooms, I stayed in bed looking at the ceiling, the little window, the light that came in through the window and fell on the sheet. Adèle appeared at the door.</p><p>- Aren't you going to get up?</p><p>- I prefer to wait lying down.</p><p>She approached, knelt on the floor, and put her arms on the mattress.</p><p>- Good morning, she said.</p><p>She kissed me.</p><p>I examined her face.</p><p>- What does "Noé please" mean?</p><p>- What?</p><p>- What you said yesterday.</p><p>- Nothing. Forget it.</p><p>- We have to talk about it, whatever it is. Céline was going to tell me yesterday, but you came in.</p><p>It changed her face.</p><p>- To tell you what?</p><p>- Something important. She said, "I want to tell you something."</p><p>Adèle was thinking. At that moment it seemed vulnerable to me.</p><p>- Whatever Céline was going to tell you, she won't tell you anymore.</p><p>- Why not? What happens?</p><p>I felt like I was on the edge of a cliff and she was going to let go of my hand. Our relationship seemed to depend on Céline in some way, but I didn't know which one. I was always left without knowing, she and Céline made their deals and left me out. I felt like merchandise that others were trading on. She left the room and left me with my questions, as if she didn't care. While I was dressing I thought all this. My mind was going full speed and I couldn't stop it. I felt sick.</p><p>I went downstairs and they asked me to cut bread.</p><p>- What do you usually read? Valérie asked me as soon as she saw me.</p><p>- Huh?</p><p>- We are going to play later, you know? We have to know each other well because later we will form pairs at random and the one who hits the most wins. And you may be my pair.</p><p>She winked at me. She took a tomato from a platter, washed it and began to cut it.</p><p>- I read Boris Vian a lot, she told me. His fantastic stories.</p><p>- My favorite author is Alain de Botton, I said.</p><p>- Do not know him.</p><p>- Has essays and novels about love.</p><p>- And your favorite painting ?, she asked me again. She seemed to be taking it seriously.</p><p>- Portrait of a Lady on Fire, by Hélène Delmaire.</p><p>She laughed.</p><p>- I love "The Scream" by Munch. If I have to choose one, I always choose that one.</p><p>Very appropriate, being a sound engineer, I thought.</p><p>I took the basket of bread and prepared to go out into the garden. The time was approaching to see Céline's face again and remember her saying: "I want to tell you something", her expression between tired and worried had shocked me. And the moment was approaching to see Adèle's face after leaving me standing before without answering me.</p><p>I was like the boat that sways in the waves and in the middle of the night looks for the light of the lighthouse. I had one of my panic attacks. I looked for Adèle and approached her.</p><p>- Can you come for a moment?</p><p>She followed me through the house and we went into the bathroom.</p><p>- What happens.</p><p>- I want to cry.</p><p>- Why?</p><p>A tear ran down my cheek.</p><p>She hugged me and stroked the nape of my neck and hair. We were like this for a long time, without saying anything, then she asked.</p><p>- Is it over?</p><p>I turned on the tap and washed my face.</p><p>She was waiting for me with her hand on the door handle. We look at each other in the mirror.</p><p>- I'd make love to you right now, she said.</p><p>- Does it excite you to see me cry? I asked.</p><p>I knew it excited her. She came over and stuck her nose into my hair, kissed my neck, squeezed my breasts. I heard her breathing.</p><p>- It excites me to see you cry, she said with a raspy voice, and to see you eat, and even when you're asleep.</p><p>- But we don't have time, I said.</p><p>- I know it.</p><p>We crossed the house hand in hand with a knot in the stomach and returned to the garden.</p><p>During breakfast a basket with papers was passed and the couples were distributed.</p><p>- Who do you play with?</p><p>- This game doesn't make much sense to me, I don't know anyone.</p><p>- Who, Noémie?</p><p>- Arthur.</p><p>- Ufff.</p><p>Adèle was in a bad mood.</p><p>- I suppose you are going to know everything about Arthur because you talked a lot yesterday, right?</p><p>I looked at her askance.</p><p>- And you?</p><p>She showed me the paper:</p><p>- You.</p><p>When we finished breakfast, the game started ... An innocent hand took a piece of paper out of the basket and read aloud:</p><p>- This is about Arthur. Who has to answer about Arthur?</p><p>I raised my hand.</p><p>- In which two Céline films did Arthur collaborate?</p><p>Arthur looked at me smiling.</p><p>- <em>Girlhood</em> and <em>Portrait of a woman on fire</em> .</p><p>- Very well, Céline said quietly.</p><p>- Arthur, was Noémie right?</p><p>Arthur nodded and everyone applauded.</p><p>Now another innocent hand, Céline's hand, took out another piece of paper.</p><p>- This is about you Noémie. Who has to answer?</p><p>Adèle raised her hand.</p><p>- Adèle, who is Noémie's favorite writer?</p><p>Céline waited, everyone waited. Adèle had no idea, but she didn't want to hesitate in front of everyone.</p><p>- She has no preferred author, she likes many, she replied without shame.</p><p>I looked at Valérie, who was smiling at me.</p><p>The countdown began.</p><p>- Say one.</p><p>Adèle tried her luck:</p><p>- Umberto Eco.</p><p>I felt my heart break.</p><p>It was time to check if Adèle knew me, if we formed a couple or just fucked.</p><p>- Noémie, who is your favorite writer?</p>
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<a name="section0021"><h2>21. Chapter 21</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p><p>- Alain de Botton, I replied.</p><p>Adèle looked down.</p><p>- Oooooh !, they all exclaimed.</p><p>The game went on without us, because we were no longer there in the garden, we were really somewhere else. A cold and inhospitable part, another planet. She looking at the remains of breakfast, me looking at the others, how others were having fun. I've always felt on the sidelines, anyway. There is always a time when I am no longer there: I am gone. I got up and went to the kitchen. I looked for something cold in the fridge. What a disappointment, I thought. What a sad disappointment. Why had I imagined that I had something else with Adèle? Why had I believed that, by living together, we began to know each other and build a new language, the language of love, the one that only she and I know? Now I see that we haven't built anything and that each one speaks a different language. I searched the fridge without knowing what I was looking for. I was only able to feel my broken heart in my chest and it was like it wasn't beating well.</p><p>We spent Saturday chatting and playing ping pong.</p><p>I felt tired as if, instead of spending the weekend partying, I had fought a battle. When I was able to escape, I sat down with a small group that smoked and chatted quietly. I just wanted to listen and forget my concerns. Then, at a certain moment, Adèle was not in the garden, and Céline took the opportunity to approach and take me aside.</p><p>- How are you doing with Adèle? She asked bluntly.</p><p>What happened during breakfast prevented me from lying. I felt uncovered, I thought that everyone had realized that she and I were not so well, so this time I did not smile, it would have been useless. Instead, I looked her straight in the eye and waited for what she had to say.</p><p>- I wanted to tell you that ... I look at you and I see myself starting my relationship with Adèle so many years ago. It is very nice to fall in love, she said somewhat shyly.</p><p>I kept listening to her, I didn't want to interrupt her, I wanted her to finish before Adèle returned. But I was afraid of what she was going to tell me. I didn't like her saying that: that our relationship reminded her of hers.</p><p>Céline continued:</p><p>- She is very strong, I suppose you have noticed, she hardly ever cries. And she is very stubborn and wants to do things her way, if you tell her she is wrong, she wants to show you that she is right. Although she isn't. But then she comes where you are and says "you were right". There is a tender heart under that breastplate.</p><p>She said it all with a blank look delving into her memories and after this preamble, she looked at me and gave me some advice.</p><p>- Be patient. Go slowly with her, because she can't stand being told what to do.</p><p>At the end of all that, she smiled at me, raised her glass of wine, winked at me and left me in my corner, with my glass and my cigarette, thinking.</p><p>Then Adèle returned to the garden and I decided not to tell her about my conversation with Céline, that would remain between Céline and me. It was clear that they were talking and not only about their things, but also about ours. I could imagine Adèle telling Céline that I had asked for a child. I could imagine it perfectly, considering the advice she had just given me. What I did not expect is that Céline came to tell me this. I was stumped.</p><p>Adèle came slowly towards me, her hands in her pockets.</p><p>- Hello.</p><p>- Hello.</p><p>- What are you doing here alone?</p><p>Do not answer. Instead, I took a drag.</p><p>- Noé, she said.</p><p>- Yeah?</p><p>- I am buying a book from your favorite writer on Amazon.</p><p>I looked at her puzzled.</p><p>She showed me the screen of her mobile.</p><p>- Which one would you recommend?</p><p>I looked at the covers of Alain de Button's books and pointed to one.</p><p>- This one.</p><p>She read aloud.</p><p>- "On love: a novel".</p><p>I saw her smile to herself. A barely noticeable smile.</p><p>- Well, let's prepare the barbecue, said Jutdith.</p><p>And we all got down to work.</p><p>On Sunday when we were saying goodbye, the son of Judith and Jean-Baptiste, who was with the grandparents, arrived and we all had a good time entertaining him. Adèle took it to the toy ping pong table and they were playing. At noon we took our bikes and went home. The weekend had passed. The events were spinning in my head without any sense. I had to assimilate them.</p><p>I laid on the bed. She looked at me from the door. We looked at each other for a long time. That look said it all. An I LOVE YOU in capital letters passed through my head, giant, the more absurd the bigger: it was an I love you without conditions. I was sure she could read it from where she was.</p><p>She laid down next to me and said, looking at the ceiling:</p><p>- Let's start from scratch, okay?</p><p>- Okay, I said.</p><p>For a few seconds, we were silent, then I launched myself:</p><p>- My name is Noémie Merlant. I'm an actress. And I love you, Adèle Haenel. Apart from that, my favorite dish is salad with goat cheese and cold meat. I like romantic movies, romantic songs ... I like to play darts and also table football, I used to like boxing before, or thought I liked it, but I realized that I hate it ... I love swimming in the sea, I love summer, it is my favorite season of the year, I like beer, Coronita is my preferred, but what I like the most is the wine ...</p><p>I stopped and looked at her. I could go on to infinity.</p><p>- I want you to hit me when we make love.</p><p>She did not blink.</p><p>- And I want to have a child with you.</p><p>Adèle still kept her eyes on the ceiling.</p><p>- And I want you to tell me what's going through your head now.</p><p>- Do you like playing table football ?, she said surprised.</p><p>I laughed. But I was on hold. What if it was impossible to start again now? What if she ran away from what I had just said? But it was not worth continuing as before.</p><p>Then she turned to me.</p><p>- What exactly does "I want you to hit me" mean?</p><p>- That you slap me.</p><p>- How strong? How many times?</p><p>I thought about it carefully.</p><p>- Once or twice, when we start.</p><p>- I don't know if I can do it.</p><p>I saw in her eyes a certain vertigo and wanted to change the subject.</p><p>- Well, now it's your turn.</p><p>- Okay. My name is Adèle Haenel. I'm an actress. I like beer, wine, vodka ... Well, and changing the subject, I like disco music. I know it's not very interesting, but it is what it is. And I like reading ... essays on anthropology, feminism, politics, theater ... I have been reading Spinoza a lot lately. What else...</p><p>She searched her mind as her eyes searched the ceiling.</p><p>- I don't think I like being beaten in bed ...</p><p>She kept thinking.</p><p>- I don't know if I want to have a child. I'm a little scared to be wrong about their education.</p><p>She continued to think looking at the ceiling.</p><p>- And I'm in love with you, Noémie Merlant, voilà.</p><p> </p><p>It was getting dark. We prepare dinner, something light, and we have dinner almost without speaking. Then she came and went in a robe, with her cell phone in hand.</p><p>- I thought you hated social media.</p><p>- Is a lie.</p><p>- But do you have a profile then?</p><p>- Yes, of course, I have an official one on Instagram, but I hardly post anything. And then I have another one on Facebook with a false name, it is to share photos and news only with people who really know me.</p><p>I laughed.</p><p>- Come on, let's go to the sofa.</p><p>I finished filling the dishwasher and followed her to the couch.</p><p>- Look.</p><p>She showed me the mobile.</p><p>- What is this?</p><p>- A kit to tie you to the bed.</p><p>I laughed.</p><p>- What about this here?</p><p>She looked naughty at me.</p><p>- I'll explain it to you later, when I read the instructions. I have no idea about this. I am new.</p>
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<a name="section0022"><h2>22. Chapter 22</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p><p>She was on top of me, sweaty as an ancient goddess, sitting, moving rhythmically over my pubis. Sometimes she looked at me and sometimes she closed her eyes. I had no idea what she was thinking, that she had decided that this was the moment.</p><p>Then, she looked at me longer and put her left hand on my cheek, caressed it. She did it looking me in the eyes, asking me if I wanted to or not. Only our gasping breath could be heard. I was wanting her to do it and she could see the desire in my eyes. But I saw that she hesitated for a moment. Then she slapped me.</p><p>After that she put that hand on the mattress and covered her face with the other. I looked at her without knowing what to do. My cheek was still throbbing. I saw her fall apart. I heard her complaining as if she had been hit in the stomach.</p><p>She got up and went to the bathroom.</p><p>I covered my face with the sheet. I couldn't think. Minutes passed.</p><p>After a while, she returned and sat on the edge of the bed, defeated.</p><p>- This is too much, she murmured. Too much. I don't know how to do it.</p><p>I said nothing. I ran my tongue down the inside of my cheek. She stretched out beside me.</p><p>- What if I hit you with a towel or a cushion?</p><p>I did not laugh. Could not. This was not the time to make jokes. I hated she making jokes of her misunderstanding.</p><p>She put her face in my neck. Then she examined my face.</p><p>- It hurts?</p><p>I nodded. And I added:</p><p>- It has to hurt, if not, has no sense.</p><p>- Are you mad?</p><p>Yes, I was. I couldn't help it.</p><p>- If you ask me if it hurts, like you're my mom, it's not sexy.</p><p>Why was I angry? She had tried ... But I felt my sex throbbing between my legs. I still wanted to take her hand and put it there to finish what had started, but we were arguing and she asked me if she had hurt me. I was frustrated and desperate.</p><p>She turned around in bed as abruptly as possible and left me staring at the ceiling.</p><p>- Have you always liked being hit?</p><p>I looked at her offended. I looked at her back. Her moles. Her blonde hair.</p><p>- You say it as if you were looking for a cause for “my illness”.</p><p>- I only ask.</p><p>And since I was still silent. She added:</p><p>- Come on, Noé, didn't you want us to get to know each other? Well I'm asking you.</p><p>- I don't ask everyone. I have asked you this because I love you.</p><p>She didn't say anything, but I knew that that phrase, "I'm asking you because I love you," seemed crazy to her and was spinning in her head.</p><p>- Did you ask Simon? She asked at last.</p><p>- Please, I protested.</p><p>- So he feels free to hit you.</p><p>- Is not that. It has nothing to do with that.</p><p>- Not?</p><p>She turned around because she wanted to know. What exactly did she want to know?</p><p>- Tell me one thing: what difference is there between the slap he gave you and the one I gave you a moment ago?</p><p>I glared at her.</p><p>- What's the difference?</p><p>- Yes, tell me, explain it to me because I don't get it.</p><p>- To begin with, he hit me without me asking and he did it to hurt me.</p><p>I saw in her eyes that she was making an effort to understand.</p><p> </p><p>That was the first time she tried to hit me. We were in a hotel room in Toronto, that night the film festival began. Céline knocked on the door.</p><p>- Shit! Adèle ran to the bathroom.</p><p>What was I supposed to do? Open in robe? I got nervous.</p><p>Céline waited.</p><p>I looked at the clock: six o'clock, at that time we had agreed. I ran around the room looking for the robe. I could imagine her standing there, rubbing her hands, spinning down the hall, desperate, disappointed.</p><p>I poket my face out the door.</p><p>- Céline, sorry.</p><p>She stopped me with a gesture.</p><p>- I'll wait for you in my room.</p><p>I nodded embarrassed.</p><p>Then we went looking for her. Céline had to face our bad mood. I thought she was about to ask "what's wrong?" or to ask us to make an effort to change our attitude. But we couldn't relax because of that between us. That secret between me and her: Adèle couldn't fuck me the way I wanted to. Not that it was impossible to fuck at all, but it suddenly seemed. I interpreted Adèle's attitude: she blamed me, she thought that until now everything had gone well and I had screwed up. She didn't say it, but I could feel it. I had screwed it up. We were doing well, but I had demanded too much.</p><p> </p><p>After the opening dinner there was a party in another room and we chatted with the rest of the guests for a while. I noticed that sometimes Adèle looked at me trying to understand, as if I were a mystery, and then I wanted to caress her cheek, but it was impossible in front of so many people. I began to think that perhaps I had put a weight on her shoulders and that from now on we could no longer relax in bed, I had been unfair asking her to do something that disgusted her. But at the same time, I remembered that image from a couple of hours ago and thought: if you, my love, if you knew how beautiful you are like this on your knees open, sitting on me, sweating, excited and panting. If you knew how much it excites me to think that from one moment to the next you are going to hit me, you would not hesitate for an instant.</p><p>- What happens now? Céline said. She seemed desperate.</p><p>She had said "now" with impatience and that amused me. I snickered.</p><p>Adèle saw me laugh and she laughed too. At last, I thought. Finally, humor was coming to our rescue.</p><p>- Sorry, said Adèle.</p><p>- How difficult is love, said Céline mocking.</p><p>That made us laugh more. I thought: she's fabulous. How is it possible to take it that way? It seems to be above everything, back from everything.</p><p>And she continued with her jokes:</p><p>- If I came to know that chemistry was so explosive, I would have thought twice.</p><p>She had that power to make everyone laugh. It was incredible. The three of us ended up laughing.</p><p>- But I couldn't but to choose you, Adèle pressured me to be you.</p><p>- Adèle pressured you? I asked innocently.</p><p>- Well, the moment she saw you ... Her eyes lit up.</p><p>Céline followed suit, rolling her eyes as if she had been hit on the head. She tried to move them in a circle, but she didn't have that ability. Adèle and I continued laughing without stopping.</p><p>- And what did she tell you?</p><p>- What she said? She said: I love the brunette, the brunette is hot, definitely.</p><p>I looked at Adèle in alarm.</p><p>- She is not serious. I was not so vulgar. I did not put that face and I did not say "the brunette", I said the one with the big dark eyes.</p><p>My stomach ached from laughing so much.</p><p>- That, that: "Big eyes." Céline said.</p><p>Céline made a love face making so much emphasis that it left a satyr face. And Adèle burst out laughing.</p><p>- Please, Céline, take off that face. I didn't drool that much!</p><p>Céline was laughing so hard she was about to sit on the floor. Adèle looked at her in amazement.</p><p>- Behave!</p><p>A group approached, they were coming to take Céline with them, so we followed them with our glass in hand. Adèle kept making jokes:</p><p>- Let's see just in case she ends up dancing naked on a table.</p><p>I was starting to get to know Céline. How was it possible that she still loved Adèle and was there with us making jokes? She seemed to me a fascinating woman, she had the secret of eternal love, beyond physical possession, and I had her in front of me. I had to hurry to learn everything, I could not miss this opportunity.</p>
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<a name="section0023"><h2>23. Chapter 23</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p><p>- Haven't you wonder why Céline threw in the trash all the scenes where there was some hope that Hèloïse and Marianne would meet again?</p><p>We are lying on the hotel bed, my head on her chest. The TV is on. She takes the remote and lowers the volume, and asks me to repeat the question. So I repeat it and she thinks about it for a while.</p><p>- I don't understand you, she says.</p><p>- Céline cut that part: when we make love and my pupils are dilated as yours, and that other one at the end of the film, when Hèloïse sits in the auditorium and listens to Vivaldi and looks at Marianne, that shot was removed.</p><p>Adèle is silent for a long time and finally says:</p><p>- She didn't want Hèloïse to look at Marianne because it is like saying: in the end they ended up together, and that is not the idea, Céline did not want to repeat the typical ending of romantic movies.</p><p>- And what is the typical ending? Actually there are many.</p><p>- Well, the protagonists either get married or die. If they don't marry, they die, and if they don't die, they marry.</p><p>I look at her amused by that tongue twister. She insists:</p><p>- Seriously. What that ending means is that you have to be with that person necessarily, you cannot live without them: that is possession, selfishness, dependency, not love. Love is generosity, freeing that person, giving her wings and not putting chains on her.</p><p>- And we wear chains?</p><p>Adele snorts. She has just given a very nice speech and I'm spoiling it.</p><p>- Do you remember how you got when you thought I was flirting with Arthur?</p><p>Now she narrows her eyes and remains silent.</p><p>- You were jealous. You want me just for you, you don't give me wings.</p><p>I'm paraphrasing her.</p><p>She remains silent. She doesn't have a satisfactory answer: either she says yes, that she puts chains on me, and then our relationship is bullshit, or she says that she gives me wings, and then, she should be willing to let me go with whoever I want. And frankly, I can't imagine Adèle in an open and generous relationship, with how jealous she is.</p><p>- I think Céline was cutting lines with that movie, I say at last.</p><p>She looks at me askance. With fear of what I'm going to say now.</p><p>- Yes, she was leaving your story behind, saying goodbye. So Hèloïse and Marianne don't end up together and are meant to remember their perfect love story.</p><p>In protest, she picks up the remote control again, but I gently take it from her hand.</p><p>- Then, thanks to the film, she has managed to let you go, she no longer loves you ...</p><p>- Where do you want to go? She asks me impatiently.</p><p>- I want to know if you think she doesn't love you anymore.</p><p>- Of course she loves me, she answers.</p><p>She has that closed expression that she always has when she doesn't want to talk about a topic.</p><p>- And why do you say "of course" that she loves me? Why is it so clear?</p><p>- Because I know and you can see it.</p><p>- And why did she laugh so much with us last night, making jokes all the time about our chemistry?</p><p>- Humor is a good way to overcome frustration.</p><p>- So she's frustrated because she doesn't have you?</p><p>Now she's looking me straight in the eye, wondering how to get out of the jam, if it's fair to say that Céline is frustrated.</p><p>Whenever she feels trapped, Adèle gives a philosophical talk and I can see that she is searching her mind for some complicated speech to knock me out, at this moment she is preparing to give me a little talk about love, beauty and art, according to Spinoza.</p><p>I lay my head on her chest again, thinking she can say whatever she wants because I've already won. She begins her dissertation:</p><p>- Beauty, like art, are inexplicable. If they were, they could be copied, it would be enough to have the recipe. Then everyone could produce beauty, just like art, on demand. Everyone would own them. But nobody owns them because their essence is the intangible, the mysterious. So you settle for owning someone, a substitute for beauty, but it's just a substitute, kind of like a temporary hallucination. Actually, what you're really after is those intangible things, but all you have is a sad substitute.</p><p>I close my eyes and listen to the clock in her chest. I think: how sad it is to call our love "sad substitute" for beauty.</p><p>And she reads my thoughts and is silent.</p><p>- Go on, I say.</p><p>But she doesn't know how to get out of it. Then I force her to examine what she has said:</p><p>- Is our love a sad substitute?</p><p>- I don't mean love, I mean sex.</p><p>That's not what I expected. I pull away from her and look her in the eye.</p><p>- Why do you hate sex?</p><p>- I do not hate it.</p><p>- So why is it sad, why is it just "a substitute"?</p><p>- My God, you're going to drive me crazy.</p><p>- No, <em>you</em> are going to drive me crazy, I tell her.</p><p>Her expression softens and I see in her eyes that see loves me.</p><p>- There it is, I point with a nod of my head.</p><p>- What.</p><p>- Love, I just saw it in your eyes.</p><p>Our conversation went through my mind for the rest of the day. I had it in my head even during the screening of our film and during the audience round of questions. At lunch and dinner. I watched Céline, saw her making jokes and saw her looking at Adèle with total devotion. Was it true that she loved her, but had already given up possessing her? So she made those jokes, to deal with the loss, "a way to overcome frustration." In any case, it was an elegant and worthy way to get over it and I admired her for it.</p><p> </p><p>In the evening, we meet in her room. Céline leaned back in bed to read us an interview she had been given and we lay on bed on the opposite side. I hugged Adèle: I put one arm on the mattress and hugged her with the other. So the three of us were in bed. And I thought maybe Adèle was uncomfortable, but she would have to put up with it. Wasn't Céline beyond physical possession? It was time to show it. Céline was still reading aloud quietly, without looking at us. Adèle removed my arm and I put it back. We were in that silent fight. And Céline didn't seem to know. Then I got lost in my thoughts, I imagined the following: perhaps not that same night, but another day, an afternoon in a hotel or at home, we would make love in front of Céline. I saw all the details of that moment and they were so clear that it seemed to be happening now. And it would all start that way. Céline would read us an interview or the script of <em>Portrait of a Lady on Fire</em>, or a book by Spinoza, and Adèle and I would start caressing each other. At some point, she would stop reading to look at us. Being present when we make love will be her way of continuing to possess Adèle without possessing her. And everything is in the script, in Céline's script, from before the film started to shoot.</p><p>I am totally immersed in my thoughts, I can only hear Céline in the background. Adèle is in my arms, she has given up and already lets herself be hugged. I kiss her blonde hair, which is so close to my lips.</p><p>Céline has finished reading and is looking at us with an enigmatic smile.</p><p>- You are perfect, she says.</p><p>And then, of course, she makes a joke.</p><p>- You just have to learn English.</p><p>We started to protest because she doesn't value the English that we actually speak, but she gets up and reminds us that we are meeting with the guys from <em>Parasites</em>. And along the way, she tells us:</p><p>- Let's see how you speak English with the Koreans. Don't use me as an interpreter.</p>
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<a name="section0024"><h2>24. Chapter 24</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>Battle of kisses:</p><p>Adèle is at the window smoking. I come up in my dressing gown and put myself in her arms. I take the cigarette from her and throw it into the street.</p><p>I try to get into her arms again, but she grabs me by the shoulders and laughs. We struggled, but she doesn't let me go and she is looking at me between amused and intrigued.</p><p>I try to tickle her, but she grabs my wrists and pulls them behind my back. In revenge, she crushes a kiss against my left eye.</p><p>I hide my face in her neck dodging it. She tries to kiss me again, but she doesn't succeed. We wrestled for a while at the window.</p><p>- Okay, she gives up.</p><p>Let go of my wrists and let me slip back into her arms.</p><p>- You owe me a cigarette.</p><p>I have no intention of undoing that hug all day, so I make the least movement to reach for the tobacco, which is on the table.</p><p>- I can't take it, I tell her.</p><p>- Don't worry, we'll take it later.</p><p>She sticks her fingers through my hair and massages my thoughts, which calm down. My entire body is connected to her fingertips.</p><p>- Are you going to let it grow?</p><p>I just can't speak, I have a conversation with her fingers. She continues:</p><p>- I like it short. It curls you a little bit.</p><p>I have bristling skin.</p><p>- If it grows a little more, I'm going to call you brownielocks.</p><p>Brownielocks is fine, I think.</p><p> </p><p>We are in New York in late September. We walk with Céline through the city and go shopping. We eat in a cafe that has been recommended to her. Céline looks at us proud and enigmatic, and Adèle asks her what's wrong.</p><p>- I'm happy, she says.</p><p>- Why?</p><p>- Because we are living this together. Isn't it exciting?</p><p>Céline looks at me.</p><p>- Yeah right. It's exciting.</p><p>I'm sparing in words.</p><p>- Aristotle said that shared happiness multiplies.</p><p>- Didn't Coca Cola say that? Asks Adèle.</p><p>- They copied it.</p><p>We laugh.</p><p>Amy Macdonald plays in the background This Is The Life.</p><p>- Aristotle was wrong says Adèle.</p><p>- Oh yeah? And why, smart girl? Céline and I asked in unison.</p><p>She looks at us fascinated.</p><p>- What?, we asked. We also ask this at the same time.</p><p>She holds up a finger to lead us.</p><p>- Let's see? Again?</p><p>But this time it doesn't come out.</p><p>Céline and I looked at each other knowingly.</p><p>- Please stop doing it, it's scary.</p><p>- We don't do it on purpose, do we?</p><p>I look at Céline with a half smile and then I look at Adèle.</p><p>- Not at all, we haven't rehearsed before.</p><p>Adèle takes a napkin and passes it to her forehead.</p><p>- I think we spend too much time together.</p><p>And then adds:</p><p>- Marine called me.</p><p>- Yeah? And why haven't you told me before? You knew it?</p><p>Céline looks at me. I nod with a smile on my lips.</p><p>- I thought we were synchronized, she reproaches me.</p><p>Adèle continues.</p><p>- She says that Ruggia has not replied to her emails.</p><p>- We already knew that, he was not going to answer. He's a <em>cochon</em>, says Céline.</p><p>Takes a potato that was left on the plate and put it in her mouth. She does it with anger.</p><p>I look at her. I look at them. I am analyzing everything. Adèle's expression, Céline's. Adèle depends a lot on her, it shows that she has been thinking all morning about how she will tell her about Ruggia and when. She expects her to say something to comfort her.</p><p>- Look, says Céline.</p><p>Adèle listens.</p><p>- Let's go see him at his house and twist his neck.</p><p>Adèle looks at me with a smile on her lips. She is happy to be able to share the weight with her.</p><p>- And what else did Marine say? Asks Céline.</p><p>- On November 2 the research will be published and the next day we will be on the screen.</p><p>- Are you going out too? I ask Céline.</p><p>Céline shakes her head. Adèle has said "we'll be" because she cannot imagine going through this without her, but Céline is not going to speak on TV.</p><p>I keep thinking about the kind of relationship they have. I had never suspected that it was possible to continue loving each other in this way when you end a love relationship.</p><p>Now Hallelujah is playing in the background.</p><p>- Is that Leonard Cohen ? Adèle asks me.</p><p>- Jeff Buckley.</p><p>Adèle looks at Céline:</p><p>- She has incredible auditory memory.</p><p>I raise an eyebrow. Céline challenges me:</p><p>- Let's see if you guess the next one, but when it still hasn't played, of course, because if not, it's easy.</p><p>We both laugh. So much joking followed gives me a stomach ache.</p><p>So, when Adèle goes to the bathroom, I look at Céline and say:</p><p>- I have asked Adèle to have a daughter.</p><p>I suspect she already knows, but I also want to tell her. She has the good taste to make herself the new one.</p><p>- And what does she say?</p><p>- She doesn't want.</p><p>- Maybe she needs time, right?</p><p>We were both thinking.</p><p>- Are you telling me so I can tell you how to convince her?</p><p>- I suppose if we have it, you will be the godmother, so I will inform you now.</p><p>She laughs and shakes her head.</p><p>- What?</p><p>- Nothing, only I look at how everything has happened and I don't believe it.</p><p>We are silent.</p><p>- And you want her name to be Adèle? She says.</p><p>- Yeah.</p><p>- And that she has her eyes and her hair, and her mouth?</p><p>- Yeah</p><p>We laugh.</p><p>- And how is that done? Do they take the information from her egg and put it in yours?</p><p>I wrinkle my nose.</p><p>- Something like that.</p><p>- And then comes a beautiful girl with your brown curls and green eyes?</p><p>- I suppose.</p><p>She is thoughtful.</p><p>- And don't you want my genetic information too? The girl will be a little short, but she will be very funny.</p><p>She says it jokingly and seriously at the same time.</p><p>Adèle returns to the table.</p><p>- What are you talking about?</p><p>Céline and I looked at each other.</p><p>- Nothing important. You will know when the time comes.</p><p>- Coffee? Says the waitress.</p><p>- Vodka with ice, says Céline.</p><p>We did not expect that, nor did the waitress, who is still waiting to see what we want.</p><p>- I have a coffee. And you?</p><p>- A coffee.</p><p>- Two coffees and a vodka with ice.</p><p>The woman leaves with the order and Adèle looks at Céline with her mouth open:</p><p>- Vodka on the rocks? What's wrong?</p><p>- I need a good shot.</p><p> </p><p>At night, in bed, Adèle has her face turned towards me and whispers.</p><p>- It was very strange. Don't you think?</p><p>She is so close that I feel her breath on my forehead.</p><p>I know what she talking about. It also seemed strange to me at lunch. Rare, but comfortable, rare, but warm.</p><p>- What's strange? I ask.</p><p>- That you and Céline were synchronized.</p><p>I laugh.</p><p>- Seriously. It was very strange. And then she ordered a vodka ...</p><p>- She was euphoric.</p><p>- And why was she euphoric?</p><p>- I dont know. You know her better. Why was she behaving like this?</p><p>Adèle does not respond. And then I launch myself:</p><p>- Tell me how your relationship with Céline started. I'd like to know what you liked about her, who started flirting.</p><p>After a few seconds of doubt, Adèle begins to tell me:</p><p>- I liked her sense of humor. And I liked her eyes too. Giggling eyes. She has that warm look that hugs you. And I liked her intelligence. I didn't know anything about life, but I realized that she was intelligent.</p><p>I am silent, listening to her. I have pressed a hidden key that allows me to access her interior. I'm not going to interrupt her, I want to know everything.</p><p>- I think I was the one who started flirting. I was just a girl. I mean, I was only eighteen, but I noticed when I looked at her, she blushed, and I liked that. I liked that it was so easy to leave her speechless, to leave someone so intelligent speechless, just by looking at her.</p>
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<a name="section0025"><h2>25. Chapter 25</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>“Céline was 28 and I was eighteen when we start dating, she is ten years and almost two months older than me. Water Lilies premiered in August 2007 and we started dating in September. It was all very fast, but we hardly separated during the year that the filming and promotion of the film lasted, so when September arrived we had been going everywhere together for a year and living many experiences. She was starting her career no less, and for me, who was taking her up again, that was the real beginning.</p><p>I liked watching her directing. Although she look like shy, she was strong, she did not allow herself to be led by anyone, but she carried them all without them noticing. Seeing her at work was like a catharsis, it meant that I could also direct my world if I wanted to and, taking into account my previous experience, that was what I needed most, to feel safe and feel that I could direct my life.</p><p>It was all exciting and fun: screenings, festivals awards, parties. I became her shadow and she became mine. Since I was very young, she adopted the role of tutor in some way and I liked to let myself go because she knew how to treat people, always with respect. She was also (and is) so funny. So I felt very good by her side and I thought that movie was the best thing that had ever happened to me. We talked a lot, especially me, who immediately became the center of attention. It placed me at the center of her life. It made me feel like an adult and made me feel important. She never despised my opinions and surely spoke a lot of nonsense.</p><p>That Sunday in September, she invited me to go to the cinema to see Private Property, and during the film I put my hand on her leg. I remember how nervous I was. I had spent the whole movie thinking: "now", without daring to do it. When I did, she took my hand and didn't let it go the rest of the afternoon. She walked me home and we said goodbye with a kiss. Our first kiss. I remember when I entered the house I leaned against the door and my mother said to me "are you alright darling?"</p><p>Now I think that she was very brave in allowing herself to live our love, such an uncertain love. But it was hard for her to trust that love: She was afraid because I was a girl. I was very childish actually and letting me enter her heart was a risk because I could turn it upside down. She said to me: it is happening to me like Marie, the protagonist of Water Lilies, but with the difference that Marie was fifteen and she was twenty-eight.</p><p>But it happened. She fell in love with me and there was no going back. Now I think that my love never lived up to it. I fell in love with her little by little and it was a beautiful love, but I did what I wanted, I acted like I was fifteen years old. I was childish, capricious, "you are like the gods of Olympus," used to tell me. I made her suffer a lot because she noticed that she didn't have me at all and that she would never have me completely.</p><p>One night when I made her cry she said: I am regretting this. It hurt a lot that she said that because I loved her very much, but it was true: I didn't know how to love her and it hurt to hurt her.</p><p>And little by little, I began to see her as a friend or a mother and we could no longer continue. In 2015 we broke up. I came home that day with a knot in my stomach. I got sick. But although I had been delaying it, I knew that nothing would change. I told her that we could no longer be together. That I loved her with all my soul, but that I needed to continue on my way. She collapsed. I've never seen that. She seemed lost. She was still in love with me. I perfectly remember her gaze, I have it etched in my memory. It was not disappointment or surprise. It was a gaze that was actually contemplating what she already knew would happen sooner or later.</p><p>I don't know what love really is. ”</p><p>Adèle finished speaking. I had been silent the whole time, crying in front of her eyes, but since it was night and the light was off, she didn't see me.</p><p>I imagined everything so clearly ... Céline ten years ago, young and mature, starting to date the young and childish Adèle. I could imagine how her hands were shaking and, leaving her at the front door, she had returned to hers floating in a cloud and terrified. I could imagine how she had spent the night awake thinking about what was going to happen from now on. Something that was already hopeless. Was Adèle her first woman? I guess not. But of course it became her first love.</p><p>Because Céline's adolescence was at a time that now seems very far away. When heterosexuality seemed the only existing sexuality and the one that didn't fit, it took them a while to find themself. Love was late or never came, and while all her friends had a partner in high school, Céline had had to secretly deal with her emotions. She had fallen in love and been jealous without saying a word to anyone. When at the age of twenty everyone already knows what first love and sex is, she surely still had to settle for living it in her mind.</p><p>And then Adèle came. My Adèle. And she had no choice. Just like I didn't have it either. When Adèle appears in your life, it drags you like a wave.</p><p>How different my life had been instead. Until I was twenty-nine, I thought I was straight. I shared my experiences with other girls my age, I did not feel so alone and when I grew up I did what everyone did, I got married. I don't remember falling in love with a girl before Adèle. I never flirted with any friends or they with me, and if we did, we didn't give it the importance it deserved. When Adèle arrived, it was a month before I turned 30. It seems that Adèle is something that happens to you in your twentysomething.</p><p>That Adèle had told me her love story scared me, but it also made me feel important in her life. Still, I had nightmares. I dreamed that she too would get tired of me and would come one afternoon with a knot in her stomach to tell me that she loved another. I even dreamed what time it was, how I was dressed, the exact words she was saying to me. I dreamed that I fell to the ground bent over as if I had been shot in the stomach.</p><p>I woke up late the next day. She woke me up.</p><p>- What's wrong?</p><p>- I have not slept well.</p><p>And while she was talking to me and we were dressing, I thought that we were no longer the same ones who had gone to sleep the night before. We have both changed a bit since last night. "Others bring us back to a different sense of ourselves as we become a little bit of what they think we are," says Alain de Botton.</p><p>The three of us ate breakfast in the hotel dining room and the three of us seemed to have had a bad night.</p><p>- We have to stop spending the night, said Adèle.</p><p>We did not answer, it seemed that we had been at party all night long and we could not with our soul. Céline in the morning was unable to make jokes and I was still in the middle of my nightmare.</p><p>That conversation that Céline and I had the day before had not dreamed of. That was real. Now I was thinking about it: She had proposed that we have a child among the three of us, the one she could not have with Adèle. It was not a joke and it was becoming clearer. This was what she had wanted to say by offering me "her genetic material." And usually, everything Céline joked was what she said most seriously. The question was: Did Adèle know? Did she know that Céline also wanted to have a child with her, with us?</p><p>While smearing a piece of toast I laughed. I could not avoid it.</p><p>- What's wrong? Asked Adèle.</p><p>- Nothing.</p><p>I saw it clearly: in this family we are already three and if in the end we have our little Adèle, then we'll be four.</p>
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<a name="section0026"><h2>26. Chapter 26</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>- Can I take a picture of you?</p><p>- Like this?</p><p>- Yes. I want to have many photos of us.</p><p>- Are you tired of painting and have you switched to photography?</p><p>She is naked in bed and I stand up, pointing at her with my mobile camera. We are in a hotel in London. I take the photo and go up to bed. Then I look at my work. She is looking at me with a disapproving face.</p><p>- This photo is a bomb, I tell her.</p><p>She takes my mobile away.</p><p>- I don't want to be naked on your mobile.</p><p>- Why?</p><p>- Because then anyone will have that photo if it is stolen.</p><p>- Oh, Adèle!</p><p>She gives me back my mobile.</p><p>- Delete the picture.</p><p>I erase the photo and I stay serious looking at the ceiling.</p><p>- Don't be angry.</p><p>She props herself up on one elbow and watches me.</p><p>- Tell me what happens to you. You have become very serious and it is not because of the photo.</p><p>I shake my head. I'm not going to say anything. She smiles and with a finger caresses my eyebrows, my nose, my ears.</p><p>- Do you know what we are going to do when we return home? She says.</p><p>I keep shaking my head.</p><p>- When we go home we are going to be alone you and me, and we are going to spend the day reading and making love. They are my two favorite activities. Yours too?</p><p>I'm looking at her in love.</p><p>- Your favorite activity is to eat Chocapics, ride a bike and play ping pong, don't be interesting.</p><p>Then I start messing with her. I like to make her angry.</p><p>- I've seen a photo of you reading on the subway. You look like an intellectual and you like yourself. That's what I mean.</p><p>- Of course I like me.</p><p>- Tell me the truth, you were posing for that photo. You made that bun and started reading to drive them crazy.</p><p>- Are you talking seriously? And since when do you look at photos of me on the internet?</p><p>- I also saw some videos of when Water Lilies was released.</p><p>- Oh.</p><p>- Yes. How young you were. You were a girl! And Céline is by your side and looks like your mother.</p><p>- But don't tell her.</p><p>- Did you like them older?</p><p>Adèle gets serious.</p><p>- I liked her.</p><p>- But I understand you. Céline is a very interesting and funny woman ...</p><p>I'm paraphrasing her and she realizes.</p><p>- Don't make fun of me.</p><p>I leave the game, but it's too late. I went too far.</p><p> </p><p>After London we were able to stay in Paris until the end of October. Then Adèle and Céline would go to Stockholm alone because I had to stay preparing for my divorce.</p><p>On October 25, I had to go to the Club de L'Etoile because at 8pm there was a screening of <em>Portrait</em> with subtitles for the non-French speaking public and then a round of questions and answers. I would go alone, neither Adèle nor Céline would be. We had divided the program so we could get some rest. So they couldn't help me with my English. In my mind I went through the typical questions and answers, and I was nervous, as always.</p><p>When I was leaving the house, I met Simón in the portal.</p><p>- Can we talk?</p><p>It made my heart skip a beat. I said I was in a hurry.</p><p>- I can wait for you at the door of the Club de L'Etoile and we go somewhere to have a drink.</p><p>- For what?</p><p>- You and I were together three years and since you left me I have only been able to speak with you once.</p><p>I didn't know what to do, and maybe I didn't have to run away from him all the time and we could talk like adults.</p><p>- Okay, I said.</p><p>I could have sent a message to Adèle, but I thought there was no need, that we would only be there for a while and after all it was my thing and I didn't want to worry her.</p><p>At a quarter past ten Simon was, as he had said, at the door of L'Etoile and we went to a bar that he proposed.</p><p>- I noticed you were going to L'Etoile alone, he said.</p><p>- I see.</p><p>- I just have no other way to meet you.</p><p>- You hit me...</p><p>- It was an instinctive reaction. Desperate.</p><p>- Don't tell me you hadn't noticed anything.</p><p>He was silent. Of course he had realized that our marriage was not going well.</p><p>I insisted.</p><p>- I just looked the other way, like you, he answers.</p><p>We are both silent. Perhaps there was nothing more to say. I glanced at the other people in the bar and spotted Adèle in one corner. I was shocked and he noticed and turned to where I was looking. He got up and went to her table. I froze, unable to react. He got to where she was and said something to her. She recognized him, got up and hit him in the face. Then he grabbed her arm and said something else, something that lasted too long.</p><p>Simon returned to our table. Everything had lasted endless seconds and I was still in my seat with the face of having seen a dead man. Adèle saw me and came to where I was, I followed her and the waiter asked Simon to come out.</p><p>Adèle's friends looked at me with wide eyes.</p><p>- What happened? They asked.</p><p>- My ex.</p><p>It was all I said. They did not ask for more explanations.</p><p>Adèle went to the bathroom and when she returned to the table she wanted to finish her drink. I just wanted to get out of there.</p><p>- Let me finish my drink, she told me with her eyes.</p><p>We said goodbye to her friends and walked home. Silently all the way.</p><p>It had been a coincidence that we met in that bar, there was a minimal chance of meeting in Paris, but it happened. I said to me: I shouldn't have agreed to accompany him anywhere, I've been an idiot. I was thinking this all the way. I looked at Adèle: It was useless to apologize, she did not want to listen to me and she did not want to speak.</p><p>When we got home, she went to the room and closed the door. I took off my coat and cap and went to bed dressed on the sofa. I covered my face with my hands thinking about what had just happened. It was possible that he had insulted her in front of her friends, in front of everyone, and that was why she had hit him. I couldn't hear him because there was too much noise and her table was far away.</p><p>The next day, Adèle appeared at the door of the room in a T-shirt and panties. I looked at her. We had not slept at all. She got into the shower and I was wondering what I could say now so she wouldn't be mad at me. I thought: I just have to wait for her to come. But time passed and she didn't come and I was desperate, tears came to my eyes and I began to have anxiety. I put a cushion on my face and started counting.</p><p>She appeared and took the cushion from me.</p><p>- How can you think...?</p><p>I covered my face with my arm and kept counting mentally. But she pulled my arm from my face.</p><p>- Do you want to go back to him?</p><p>I was crying and couldn't even speak.</p><p>- Answer me!</p><p>Then she realized that I couldn't breath and she lay down and hugged me very tight. We stayed like this for a long time, until I calmed down.</p><p>- I don't have to run away from him or feel persecuted. I just wanted to show my face.</p><p>She didn't say anything.</p><p>We spent the day sleeping, and then I saw her start reading her essays. I also didn't want to get out of bed.</p><p>- Do you read something to me? I asked.</p><p>- Okay.</p><p>She read something a little long to me. When she finished she asked me for my opinion.</p><p>- I haven't understood a word. I just wanted to hear your voice.</p><p>She stared at me.</p><p>- You know what?</p><p>- What.</p><p>- I start to imagine a little Noé running around the house.</p>
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